
DAVY 
CROCKETT 

WILLIAM C S PRAGUE 




Book 



e.ah/L/- 



Copyright}]?. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



TRUE STORIES OF GREAT, AMERICANS 



DAVY CROCKETT 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

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Photographed by Calvert Brothers. Nashville, Tenn. 

Davy Crockett. 
" It's the grit of a fellow that makes the man," — Davy Crockett. 



DAVY CROCKETT 



BY 

WILLIAM C. SPRAGUE 



" Live on, grow old, thou glorious Alamo ! 
Grow old in age, for thou canst never grow 
Too old for fame ; its wreaths will cling to thee, 
Thou New World's glorious Thermopylae." 

The Siege of the Alamo, 

James D. Lynch. 



Neto fork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1915, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1915. 



Norbioati ^ress 

J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 

SEP 30 1915 

©CU410716 



PREFACE 

Fortunately, when I was completing the story 
of Davy Crockett, I made the acquaintance of 
Mr. A. W. Crockett, of Texas, a grandson of our 
hero. At my request, he read the proof of what 
I have written and, with one or two minor criti- 
cisms, gave it his approval. 

He deprecates the story so often published that 
up to the time his grandfather became a justice of 
the peace he could neither read nor write ; and, as 
a refutation of the statement, he refers to a legal 
document, now in the Alamo, written by him when 
he was holding the office of justice in Tennessee. 
At the unveiling of the monument to Davy's widow, 
one of the speakers, referring to this paper, said 
he defied a majority of the judges and lawyers of 
the country to-day to write as good a hand. 

He also expressed his disapproval of the pub- 
lished statements to the effect that Davy's lan- 
guage was uncouth and slangy, and referred to 
the expressed opinions of some of the older writ- 



VI PREFACE 

ers to the effect that these statements are greatly- 
exaggerated. 

Perhaps Crockett's published autobiography may 
be largely to blame for the popular notion of his 
style of talk, for its pages give hundreds of exam- 
ples of the faults referred to. 

w. c. s. 

Chicago, 
September 1, 1915. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PACK 

Davy^s Childhood i 



CHAPTER II 
Davy's School Days 14 

CHAPTER III 
Courtship and Marriage 28 

CHAPTER IV 
Scouting in the Creek War 37 

CHAPTER V 
Fighting the Indians 48 

CHAPTER VI 

Friendly and Hostile Indians . . • . 58 

vii 



vm CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII 

PACK 

Trials and Triumphs 70 

CHAPTER VIII 
Perils of a Pioneer 85 

CHAPTER IX 
Davy as a Bear Hunter 100 

CHAPTER X 
Boatman and Congressman 112 

CHAPTER XI 
Crockett as Congressman 121 

CHAPTER XII 
A Wonderful Journey 131 

CHAPTER XIII 
Crockett in Defeat 140 

CHAPTER XIV 
Starting for Texas 150 



CONTENTS ix 

CHAPTER XV 

PAGE 

Crockett's Last Hunt i6o 

CHAPTER XVI 
"Remember the Alamo" 175 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Davy Crockett 

Bunker Hill Monument . 

Faneuil Hall . 

Davy the Bear-hunter . 

Independence Hall . 

The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas 



Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 
40 



80 
116 
138 
176 



DAVY CROCKETT 

CHAPTER I 
Davy's Childhood 

When a fifth son was born to John Crockett 
and his wife Rebecca, in their rough little log 
shanty, on the banks of the Nolachucky River in 
East Tennessee, they called him David. But 
whatever name was given him on August 17, 
1786, the day of his birth, the world has always 
called him ''Davy Crockett." 

It was not a very promising world into which 
Davy Crockett was born. If he could have looked 
forward to the years of poverty, toil, and danger 
he had before him, he might well have been dis- 
couraged at the very outset. In that desolate 
wilderness home among the mountains, the rude 
speech and actions of the men and women about 
him were scarcely less rough and less alarming 
than the cry of the wild beasts in the surrounding 
forests, or the fury of the storms as they swept 
down from the mountains. 



2 DAVY CROCKETT 

But from what we know of Davy as a boy and 
as a man, we can almost believe that even if he 
could have foreseen the future, he would have said 
on the day of his birth, ''This is what I like. This 
is my kind of a world. Let me stay!" 

Davy Crockett had in his veins the blood of 
fighting ancestors. His grandfather was an Irish- 
man, and probably one of those whose fighting 
spirit would not permit them to remain under the 
rule of old-world tyranny, for he left his native 
land and sailed away to make a home in America, 
the land of promise. 

No one knows just where these Irish immigrants 
first made their home. It was somewhere in Penn- 
sylvania, east of the mountains, and probably in 
a ''slab" shanty in the wilderness, for the govern- 
ment was generous to settlers, giving to any one 
who built a shanty and raised a crop a piece of 
land of four hundred acres. With strong arms to 
cut down the abundant timber, and with rich, vir- 
gin soil hungry for the seed, it was a matter of 
only a few months' time to make a home, unless, 
indeed, the Indians, the wild beasts, or the fever 
did not prove more than a match for the sturdy 
pioneer. 

But the newcomers did not stay long in their 
first home. Like thousands of other adventurous 



DAVY'S CHILDHOOD 3 

spirits in the new land, they ever looked to the 
setting sun, lured on by the promise of better things 
beyond; so, packing their few belongings on a 
horse or in a rude vehicle, the father, mother, and 
children made their hazardous way on foot across 
the Alleghanies, living on wild fruits and nuts 
plucked by the way, on deer and wild turkey shot 
in the forests, or on fish taken from the streams, 
ever on the alert for the wild beasts and the 
Indians who looked with ill favor on these new- 
comers in the land. 

Reaching a fertile valley in what is now Haw- 
kins County, Tennessee, the elder Crockett and 
his sons built for themselves another shanty of 
logs with an earthen floor, a hole in the roof for a 
chimney, and rifle holes in the plaster between 
the logs, in case of attack. 

And the attack came ; for one night the hideous 
yell of the Indian was heard, and when the savages 
finished their dreadful work, Davy's grandfather 
and grandmother were dead, one of their sons, 
wounded in the arm, had escaped into the forest, 
and another, who was deaf and dumb, had been 
taken captive and carried away by the redskins 
to be afterwards adopted by them and only res- 
cued after eighteen long years. 

What became of the other members of the family 



4 DAVY CROCKETT 

is not known, save that John Crockett, Davy's 
father, then but a child, escaped. Some have 
thought he must have been absent from home at 
the time, possibly working as a hired boy at the 
home of some other settler, for boys were put to 
work in those days when very young. 

We know Uttle of the early Hfe of Davy's father. 
He doubtless grew up as a day laborer, working 
at a shilling a day and his *'keep," chopping down 
trees, hauling logs, planting com, and tending 
stock. When the war of the Revolution broke 
out, he enlisted and fought in the battle of King's 
Mountain. At the close of the war he settled in 
the wilderness region of North Carolina in what 
is now Lincoln County. 

Of Davy's mother we know less. Her name 
before her marriage was Rebecca Hawkins. Doubt- 
less she also was of hardy stock. Neither husband 
nor wife could read or write, and they knew nothing 
of the ways of civilized Hfe. All they knew was 
danger and privation ; and their days and nights 
were spent in battling against these. Davy says 
of his father, "He was poor, and I hope honest." 

As with Davy's grandparents so with his parents ; 
they soon caught the western fever. We find 
them, in 1783, with three or four children — this 
was before Davy was born — making their perilous 



DAVY'S CHILDHOOD 5 

way across the mountains into Eastern Tennessee. 
Weary from the long journey, their eyes fell upon 
a pretty little river, the Nolachucky, near where 
a creek called Limestone flows into it. On its 
banks they built a rude cabin. 

The exact location of this cabin is not known, but 
it was near the site of what is now the town of /--^ 
Rogersville in Hawkins County. It was here that, 
on August 17, 1786, Davy Crockett was born. He 
was the fifth of nine children of Rebecca Crockett, 
there being six sons, four older than Davy, and 
three daughters, all younger. 

Up to the time he was twelve years old few inci- 
dents in Davy's life are known, but of these things 
we may be sure: that he never went to school, 
never heard a sermon, never read a book, and that 
all the education he received, if indeed he may be 
said to have received any, was that which was 
knocked into him by hard experience and by lis- 
tening to the tales of chance visitors who, at long 
intervals, happened to spend a night in his father's 
cabin. He must have learned to plant corn by 
stabbing the earth with a sharp stick and dropping 
in the seed ; to chop wood ; to know the names and 
nature of the wild things of the forest and the 
river; to skin the game and prepare the hide 
for clothing ; to use the flintlock rifle, though that 



6 DAVY CROCKETT 

weapon was so heavy that none but a sturdy boy 
could shoulder it ; and to go long errands over the 
trackless mountains to the homes of the '' neigh- 
bors.'' 

While other more favored boys were dreaming of 
becoming great statesmen, or lawyers, or soldiers, 
Davy Crockett knew so little of the world that he 
aspired only to be his own master and carry his 
own rifle. 

There were no men about him to inspire him to 
goodness or greatness. His father and his older 
brothers were rough, ignorant, and uncouth men. 
There was little to arouse the ambitions or aspira- 
tions of a boy whose early years were spent in such 
rude surroundings. 

In twelve years the family moved three times; 
first, to a place about fifty miles to the southeast, 
where they built another cabin and raised a crop ; 
again, when Davy was eight years old, to the banks 
of the Nolachucky, about twenty-five miles below 
their first home, where Davy's father and another 
man built a mill ; but the mountain stream, 
swelled b}^ a big storm, overflowed its banks, swept 
away the mill, ''shot, lock, and barrel," flooded 
the cabin, and drove the luckless family to the 
hills. 

Then came the third move ; this time to a spot 



DAVY'S CHILDHOOD 7 

on the Holston River, where, near a log settlement 
on one of the few trails from Virginia into the West, 
John Crockett, with the help of his wife and four 
boys, built a large log house and opened it as a 
tavern. The trail or road ran from Abingdon to 
Knoxville, and as the tavern was built on a small 
scale, the principal guests were teamsters who 
traveled over the road. 

Davy lived in the tavern till he was twelve years 
old, becoming well acquainted with hard work and 
hard times. The change from the backwoods 
cabin to the tavern on the trail was a big change in 
his life. He now came in contact with the great 
tide of western immigrants. Rough men sat about 
the log fire after supper and told the news from 
settlements along the seaboard, as well as marvel- 
ous tales of war and conquest brought by the white- 
winged ships from across the sea. We can imagine 
little Davy, in some snug corner, wide-eyed and 
wondering, as he drank in the news from the great 
outside world. 

As yet, however, Davy's chief companions were 
teamsters and rough, uncouth men with neither 
morals nor manners ; as yet he had not learned 
his A B C's ; as yet he could not write his name, 
nor "do" the simplest sum in arithmetic. But he 
was a crack shot, was quick to help the teamsters 



8 DAVY CROCKETT 

hitch and unhitch, and was good-natured and 
popular. 

Davy had a quick temper, we are told, and was 
not slow to resent an insult, but that was the way 
of people generally in those days. Something 
that happened in his first home, when he was five 
years old, illustrates this. 

One day when playing with his four older 
brothers and another boy of about fifteen, on the 
banks of the Nolachucky River, a canoe ride was 
proposed. The boys jumped into a canoe moored 
close by, and pushed out into the stream — all 
but Davy, who, being the youngest, was left behind 
as being too young for such fun. .^ 

There were dangerous rapids in the river a little 
way downstream, and when the boat, with its crew 
of small boys, reached the middle of the current, 
it became unmanageable, and began a swift descent 
to the place where, as Davy says, the river "went 
slap-right straight down." The Crockett boys 
could have managed the paddle, for they were used 
to it, but the other boy, who was the oldest and 
biggest in the company, wouldn't give it up, but 
foolishly tried to manage it himself. He paddled 
and paddled, going every way but the right way, 
until they found themselves going, stern first, 
straight toward the falls. The cries of the boys 



DAVY'S CHILDHOOD 9 

attracted the attention of a man who was planting 
com in a near-by field, and, shedding his jacket 
and shirt as he ran, he leaped into the river. By 
the hardest kind of work he reached the boys when 
they were within twenty or thirty feet of the falls 
and just in time to save them. Davy confessed, 
in after life, that, young as he was, he was ''too 
fighting mad" at the boys at the time to care what 
happened to them. It is quite possible that he 
did not realize their danger. 

But Davy's general good nature and dogged 
industry during these days at the tavern attracted 
the attention of a Dutchman by the name of Jacob 
Siler who was driving a herd of cattle across the 
mountains to Rockville in Virginia. The drover 
made John Crockett an offer for the services of his 
twelve-year-old son as helper. It meant a tramp 
of four hundred miles across the mountains, and it 
meant days and weeks of hardship and danger. 
But John Crockett and his wife did not consider 
that. The money offer, small as it was, probably 
not more than twenty-five cents a day, meant 
much to the father who was always in debt; so 
Davy went with the Dutchman, though with a 
heavy heart, for rude and uncouth as his home was, 
he loved it. Doubtless he had made many a day's 
trip over the rough mountain trail, so he was aware 



lo DAVY CROCKETT 

of the hardships before him. And he could not 
have magnified these hardships, for what could a 
little chap of twelve years know of the dangers 
that beset a long four-hundred-mile tramp over a 
wilderness trail, with the rocky steeps of mountains 
to be climbed, unb ridged streams that must be 
forded, and dismal marshes to be traversed, as 
well as the consciousness that any clump of bushes 
might conceal highwaymen or Indians, and any 
overhanging cKff might hide a panther, a reptile, 
or a bear. 

The Dutchman proved a good master and treated 
him well, so the journey was made without mishap. 
Furthermore, Davy won his employer's respect, 
so that after they reached their destination, which 
was about three miles from what is now known as 
the Natural Bridge, the drover gave him five or 
six dollars and told him he was pleased with his ser- 
vices. Also, he asked the boy to stay with him and 
not return to his father. The money the man 
had given him so pleased Davy that he accepted 
the offer. 

In spite of this,: soon came the longing for home, 
which, as the weeks ran on, ripened into a determi- 
nation to escape from his employer. He did not 
know that a boy of his age could not make a con- 
tract that would bind him to stay away from his 



DAVY'S CHILDHOOD II 

father, but he had been punished so often for dis- 
obedience that he thought this man had the right 
to his services, and that if he left him at all, it would 
have to be by stealth. 

One day there came along three wagons loaded 
with merchandise, driven by an elderly man and 
his two sons, bound for Knoxville, Tennessee. 
Davy knew them, for they had stopped at his 
father's tavern. Their route took them near 
Davy's home. Here was a chance ! The boy told 
them his story, and, whether out of pity or because 
he needed the boy's help, the old man promised that, 
if Davy would join them the following morning 
at a point some seven miles farther along on the 
road, they would take him with them. 

It was Sunday evening and the family were away 
from home. Davy set to work at once to make his 
preparations. Tying his few belongings and the 
few dollars he had saved in a bundle, he hid it 
under his bed and turned in, but not to sleep, for 
he was feverish with fear that his plans might be 
discovered. Between his childish love of home 
and his fear of his employer he felt, as he himself 
says, ''mighty queer." 

Four o'clock saw him up and dressed and creep- 
ing out into the moonless night. To his consterna- 
tion, eight inches of snow had fallen during the 



12 DAVY CROCKETT 

night and an icy gale was blowing. But what of 
that? Was he not going home? Was he not 
returning to those he cared the most for ? 

A short walk brought him to the main road, and 
this with no little difficulty he succeeded in follow- 
ing. Soon he found himself plowing along through 
snow knee-deep, and numb with the cold. His 
friends, who were up and preparing for the start 
when he arrived, gave him a hearty welcome and 
a good breakfast and together they set off for 
Tennessee. 

The lumbering wagon, loaded with boxes and 
barrels, lurched along the rough trail too slowly for 
the anxious boy whose heart beat quicker with 
every mile that brought him nearer home; for 
home, poor though it was, seemed ten times dearer 
to him now than ever before; his parents were 
there and all the people and places that were dear 
to him. So he asked if he might not hurry on alone, 
for he could travel afoot twice as fast as he could 
go by wagon. Two or three hundred miles of wil- 
derness road lay between him and home. Think 
of it, you boys of twelve ! It was of such stuff 
that boys were made in the early years of our 
country's history. Permission was given him and 
he struck out alone. Alone ! 

Luckily, after several days, when nearing the 



DAVY'S CHILDHOOD 13 

Roanoke River, which he knew he would have to 
wade, and that it would be freezing cold, he fell in 
with a drover returning to his home over the 
mountains, riding one horse and leading another. 
This was good fortune for both, as the man, who 
proved to be a jovial fellow, wanted a companion, 
and the boy sorely needed a lift. So they rode 
together until within fifteen miles of Davy's home, 
where the drover took another road and his young 
companion pushed on afoot. We can easily be- 
lieve that he ran a good part of the Way, for he was 
now in familiar country, and a few more miles 
would end the long and toilsome journey. The 
scene at his home-coming can only be imagined, 
for while his father and his mother appear to have 
bestowed little thought on Davy, they must have 
missed the good-natured, willing, and resolute Httle 
lad who had been gone from them for months. 
And there were his brothers and sisters, eager to 
hear the tales of adventure the boy would not fail 
to relate. 



CHAPTER II 
Davy's School Days 

Though Davy was happy to be at home once 
more, he was now to be confronted by trouble of 
another kind — he was to go to school ! Not the 
kind of school that boys attend to-day, but a rude 
log hut with a dirt floor, a hole in the roof to let 
out the smoke from the log fire, a square hole in the 
side to let in the light, rude benches without backs, 
and one long desk consisting of a plank laid on four 
posts driven into the ground. The schoolmaster 
knew little more than the merest elements of read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic ; but it was all the edu- 
cation possible to give the young people, and it 
was high time our twelve-year-old boy was getting 
a little of it. 

But, alas and alack, Davy's schooling lasted just 
four days ! Every school had its bully in those 
days, and there was one in Davy's school. Now 
Davy Crockett was not the boy to submit to bully- 
ing, so after the fourth day of school he hid in the 
bushes by the road along which the bully was to 

14 



DAVY'S SCHOOL DAYS 15 

go, and just as the fellow came opposite him Davy 
jumped out, and with tooth and nail went at him ! 
The fight was short but decisive, for Davy at this 
time had muscles like iron, and a temper fierce and 
unbridled. The bully was soon crying for quarter 
in good earnest. But victor though Davy was, 
there had to come a reckoning, and he knew it. 
There was his father and there was the school- 
master, either or both of whom would probably 
punish him ; so he played truant the next day and 
for several days. He would go with his brothers 
when they started for school, would hide in the 
woods all day, and return with them in the evening. 
But this could not last long. The teacher wrote a 
note to the father asking why Davy was not at- 
tending school. When the note reached him, John 
Crockett was in no mood to wait for the boy's side 
of the story. Cutting a big hickory stick, he 
started for the culprit, prepared to give him a sound 
thrashing. Davy saw him coming and took to his 
heels, the father following. The chase kept up 
for a mile when the youngster escaped over the brow 
of a hill and hid in the bushes. The father re- 
turned home puffing and blowing and in no ami- 
able mood. 

Now the truant boy was surely in a dilemma. 
To go to school was to be whipped, and to go home 



1 6 DAVY CROCKETT 

was to get, as he said, an "eternal sight" worse 
whipping, so he decided to do neither, but to push 
on several miles to the home of a neighbor whom 
he knew, and there try to get work. Here he found 
a man, Jesse Cheek, who was taking cattle to Front 
Royal, Virginia, a point two hundred miles farther 
than he had gone on his trip the year before. He 
was not long in convincing this man that he knew 
how to drive cattle and knew the trail, so he was 
hired. A few days later one of his older brothers 
hired himself out for the same trip. People did 
not waste iliuch sentiment over one another in 
those hard days, and probably Davy went away 
without so much as a regret. 

The trip was doubtless much like his former one, 
except that it consumed more time and took him 
through such prosperous settlements as Abingdon, 
Lynchburgh, Charlottesville, and Front Royal. 

At the last-named place Davy got his few dollars 
of pay and started back toward home. The 
whipping was growing dimmer and dimmer in his 
memory and the old desire to see his people was 
coming back. A brother of the drover was return- 
ing on horseback and Davy decided to go with him, 
hoping and expecting to take turns with the man in 
riding the one horse. In this he was doomed to 
disappointment, for the man did all the riding. 



DAVY'S SCHOOL DAYS 17 

After trudging along on foot for three days he told 
the man to go on ahead ; that he would follow when 
he got ready. Davy was now three or four hun- 
dred miles from home and he had but four dollars 
in his pocket. 

At this juncture he met a man by the name of 
Adam Myers, who was going into Northern Virginia 
and was intending to return to Tennessee. Myers 
was a jolly fellow and Davy liked him. The result 
was that the boy for two days accompanied him 
over the way he had come when he met his brother 
who was on his way home. The brother pleaded 
with Davy to go home with him, and so earnestly 
did he plead that the boy was moved to tears, and 
yet he refused ; for, as he said, the promised whip- 
ping came right *'slap down" on every thought of 
home. 

When they arrived at Gerardstown, the wagoner 
left him and he hired out at twenty-five cents a 
day to a farmer. By saving his earnings Davy 
accumulated enough to buy a good suit of clothes 
and still have seven dollars left. 

Then came the desire to see the big town of Bal- 
timore where the great ships came in from all over 
the world. The opportunity arose in the shape of 
the wagoner who had been his companion a short 
time before ; he was hauling a load of flour to the 
c 



i8 DAVY CROCKETT 

Baltimore market and was glad to have Davy's 
help on the way. So, stowing his better suit in the 
wagon, and giving his money into the keeping of 
his employer, Davy entered upon his work. 

The trip would have been uneventful had it 
not been that one day, on nearing a large town, 
Davy jumped in the wagon to change his clothes, 
when the horses took fright at some men trun- 
dling wheelbarrows, and ran down a steep hill, 
as much frightened as if they had seen a ghost. 
They turned a corner suddenly, broke the wagon 
tongue and whiffletrees, and sent the flour barrels 
helter-skelter in every direction. 

Were it not for well-nigh a miracle this story 
would end right here, but luckily for Davy and for 
the world the boy escaped uninjured. Davy said 
this proved that "ii sl fellow is bom to be hung, he 
will never be drowned"; and further, that ''if he 
is born for a seat in Congress, even flour barrels 
can't make a mash of him." 

At Baltimore the young backwoodsman got his 
first glimpse of the sea, and it fascinated him. 
Hours he spent on the great wharves watching the 
docking, the loading and unloading, of the great 
ships, and following them wonderingly with his 
eyes as they swung away on their voyages to dis- 
tant lands. Little wonder that when the captain 



DAVY'S SCHOOL DAYS 19 

of one of the big ships saw him, a bronzed, muscular 
lad, showing so deep an interest in what he saw, he 
offered him a place as cabin boy on his ship which 
was soon to sail with a cargo to London. Davy 
accepted with alacrity and hurried away to get his 
money and his belongings, which were still in the 
possession of the wagoner. But to his chagrin, 
the wagoner not only refused to give him what was 
his, but watched him closely to see that he did not 
get to the ship and escape him. 

Davy was now a little more than thirteen years 
of age ; he still could neither read nor write, and his 
total possessions were a suit of clothes for rough 
work, a better one for ''occasions," and seven 
dollars in money. Moreover, he was hundreds of 
miles from home, among strangers in a strange 
city, with no friend except his employer ; and now 
this friend had played him a mean trick. It is 
not strange that homesickness again gripped him 
and that he left the wagoner, without a cent in his 
pocket, and started again for his home in the 
Tennessee mountains. But two long years were to 
elapse before he reached there. 

After trudging along the road for the first few 
miles of his long journey, Davy met another wag- 
oner. The boy's heart was full. He had been 
robbed by his employer, threatened with a wagon 



20 DAVY CROCKETT 

whip, and prevented from going to sea on the great 
ship; he was penniless, hungry, and tired, with 
hundreds of dreary miles ahead of him. On meet- 
ing this man and telling him his doleful story he 
burst into tears. Davy's new friend was angry at 
once at such treatment of a thirteen-year-old boy 
and he demanded that Davy go back with him 
and point out the rascal who had mistreated him. 

When they came up to him, Davy's friend de- 
manded the seven dollars that belonged to the boy. 
The man answered by declaring that he did not 
have that much money in the world, and that he 
had spent all he had, but would pay it back when 
he returned to Tennessee. The dishonest fellow 
pleaded so hard that Davy and his champion felt 
sorry for him and let him go without the threatened 
punishment. 

For several days the two traveled together and 
then they separated, the wagoner going to his home 
in Pennsylvania, and Davy continuing on his way 
west. The last night they were together they slept 
at a place where there were a number of teamsters, 
and Davy's friend told them the boy's story. A 
collection was taken up at once, and when Davy 
started out alone the next day, he had three dollars 
in his pocket, which lasted him until he reached 
Montgomery Court House. Here for a time he 



DAVY'S SCHOOL DAYS 21 

worked for a man who gave him a shilling a day, and 
afterwards for a hatter with whom he remained 
eighteen months. At the end of that time the 
hatter failed and, as Davy had not collected a dollar 
of his wages, his work for the eighteen months went 
for nothing. After a few months' work for another 
man he again set out for home. 

On his homeward journey he reached the banks 
of the New River. The wind had roughened its 
surface and white caps were flying, making it 
dangerous to cross. He tried to get some one to 
take him over, but no one would make the ven- 
ture. Then he asked for a canoe and said he would 
go over alone. People tried to persuade him that 
it was foolhardy, but he had already adopted as 
his motto *'Go ahead," and, tying his clothes to 
the canoe rope to keep them safe, he pushed off 
into the angry current. Then began a life-and- 
death struggle to keep the bow pointed into the 
wind. Blinded by the spray, drenched to the 
skin, but clinging to his paddle, he finally brought 
the craft, half full of water, in safety to land, but 
not without having been driven two miles out of 
his course. Such was the indomitable courage of 
our fifteen-year-old lad. 

Finally, late one night he came within ^ght of 
home. The teamsters had stabled and fed their 



22 DAVY CROCKETT 

horses and were going in to supper. He inquired 
if he might stay all night and was given permission. 
Stealing into the house, he remained there unnoticed, 
and when supper was announced, which was prob- 
ably done by striking a horseshoe with a piece of 
iron, he took a place at the table, wondering if, 
among the strangers there, he would be recognized, 
and hoping he might not be until he could meet his 
father and mother alone. But it was not to be so, 
for one of his sisters (and a sister's eyes are keen) 
recognized the long- lost Davy whom the family 
had well-nigh given up ever seeing again, and rush- 
ing to him, threw her arms about his neck, crying, 
"Here is my long-lost brother!" Sure enough! 
Two years older, but there was still the same ruddy 
face and good-natured eye. All thoughts of the 
whipping were forgotten in the joy of the reunion, 
and we may well believe the young prodigal when 
he says it made him sorry he hadn't submitted to a 
hundred whippings rather than cause so much afflic- 
tion as all had suffered on his account, for they had 
not heard a word from him in two years. 

John Crockett was now poorer than ever. His 
bad habits still clung to him and his debts had 
increased, until, disheartened and discouraged, he 
had given up even trying to pay. To one neigh- 
bor he owed thirty-six dollars. This neighbor was 



DAVY'S SCHOOL DAYS 23 

a disagreeable fellow who kept a place frequented 
by hard characters. John Crockett was still en- 
titled to his son's services, and when this man pro- 
posed to hire Davy for six months, and for his pay 
give back to Davy's father the note for thirty-six 
dollars that he owed him, John Crockett agreed. 
And so, for six months, the boy served a disagree- 
able master in a disreputable place. But be it 
said to the boy's credit, and as typical of his char- 
acter, that at the end of the six months he refused 
to work longer for the man at any price, as he knew 
that to work in such a place would give him a bad 
name. 

Davy's father had agreed that, if Davy would 
work out this thirty-six-dollar note, the boy should 
have his freedom, so that anything he earned there- 
after should be his own. Now comes an incident 
that gives further insight into the boy's character. 
He was free now to sell his time and his labor for 
his own benefit. Soon after, he found work with a 
Quaker at two shillings a day. The Quaker took 
Davy for a week on trial, and was so pleased with 
his work that he gave him steady employment. 
After he had worked some time his employer 
showed him a note his father had given him for 
forty dollars, and proposed that Davy should work 
six months for the note. Many a boy, remember- 



24 DAVY CROCKETT 

ing all he had gone through, and recalling that he 
was now free, would have said, "No; you agreed 
to give me money, and money I must have." 
Not so with Davy Crockett. His father's honor 
was at stake, and it seemed that he cared more for 
his father's honor than his father himself did. 
Davy said he thought it was his duty as a child to 
help his father and ease his lot as much as he could ; 
so he worked the six months, never stopping even 
for a visit home, until, having earned the note, he 
borrowed one of his employer's horses and rode 
home. That evening he drew the note from his 
pocket and showed it to John Crockett. 

"I can't pay it," the old man wailed. "Times 
are hard and money is scarce. Take it back and 
tell him I can't pay it!" 

"But you don't need to pay it. It's paid 
already," cried Davy, proudly. "Take it. It's 
yours ! I worked to pay it off." 

History records that John Crockett shed real 
tears when the truth burst upon him that, although 
under no legal obligation to pay his father's debts, 
this son of his, for whom he had carried anger in 
his heart for a long time, and for whose proper 
bringing up he had done so little, had voluntarily 
paid his debt for him. 



CHAPTER III 

Courtship and Marriage 

Now follow two important episodes in Davy 
Crockett's life. Returning to his Quaker employer, 
he resolved to earn enough money to buy clothes ; 
for during the twelve months past he had been 
working to pay off his father's notes and had earned 
no money with which to clothe himself decently. 

After several months it dawned on him that, 
although he was a man in stature, if not in years, 
he could neither read nor write! The Quaker's 
son kept school a mile and a half away ; and this, 
it seemed to him, was his chance, so he proposed 
to his employer that he be allowed to work two days 
a week for room and board and attend school the 
other four days. The Quaker consented, and for 
six months the awkward lad puzzled his brain over 
a first primer, and made rude scrawls with a quill, 
until he could read one-syllable words, scratch some- 
thing that might be considered his name, and add, 
subtract, and multiply simple numbers ; but divi- 
sion was too much for him. Not counting the un- 

25 



26 DAVY CROCKETT 

fortunate four days already recorded, this period 
of six months covers all the schooling David Crockett 
ever had, and all he ever tried to get. 

Just before he began going to school, a pretty 
niece of the Quaker came from North Carolina for 
a visit with her uncle, and Davy proceeded at once 
to fall in love with her. When he thought of actu- 
ally saying anything to the girl, his heart fluttered 
'^ like a duck in a puddle, and when he spoke, his 
heart would go right smack up in his throat and 
choke him like a cold potato." He finally mustered 
enough courage to tell her that if she wouldn't 
marry him, he would pine away and die with con- 
sumption ! But the girl was kind as well as pretty. 
She told him gently that she was engaged to the 
Quaker's son, and then, as Davy says, he knew "his 
cake was dough." 

But his broken heart was soon mended. A boy 
of seventeen quickly rebounds from a disappoint- 
ment or a sorrow. 

The next year he heard of two pretty sisters who 
lived some ten miles away, so he resolved to find 
balm for his heart with one of them. They proved 
good company, and he was not long in "making 
up" to the more attractive of the two. When the 
Quaker's son married his cousin, Davy and his 
sweetheart were asked to "stand up" with them. 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 27 

This made Davy more eager than ever to be 
married. 

Finally Davy proposed marriage and was ac- 
cepted. He was now a healthy, muscular, awk- 
ward boy, with plenty of spirit and industry, but 
neither money nor home, and precious little chance 
of having either for some time to come. But love 
is blind, the}^ say, and the day was set for the 
wedding. A few days before, dressed in the best 
he had, Davy set out from home, saying he was 
going for a deer-hunt. Instead, he went to a shoot- 
ing-match. Now Davy had decided to take a 
hand in this shooting-match and win money enough 
to get married. He shot and was successful as 
usual, winning a whole beef. Selling his prize, he 
was enabled to go to his wedding, rich to the 
extent of five dollars. 

Proceeding joyfully and proudly on his way, 
he came to the home of his sweetheart's uncle, 
where he stopped to pay his respects, thinking of 
course the girl's relatives would be proud and glad 
to entertain him. To his surprise, he found the 
family apparently embarrassed and not at all cor- 
dial in their welcome. Soon the secret was out. 
The girl's sister happened to be there, and when he 
asked her how the folks at home were, she looked 
mortified, burst into tears, and said her sister had 



28 DAVY CROCKETT 

been fooling him and was to be married to another 
young man on the following day ! Davy says it was 
like '' a clap of thunder on a bright, sunshiny day." 

After this second disappointment Davy had no 
peace of mind, day or night, for some weeks. He 
moped over his work and lost his appetite, until 
every one thought him sick. Disconsolate, he wan- 
dered for hours through the woods with his gun, 
scarcely knowing or caring where he went or what 
happened to him, until one day chance led him to a 
cabin where lived a Dutchman of his acquaintance 
who had a daughter, ''homely as a mud fence," 
as he said, but smart and jolly. She at once began 
poking fun at him and slyly suggesting that there 
still were ''just as good fish in the sea as ever were 
caught." Davy thought she was fishing for him, 
but she wasn't, for she at once began telling him of 
a reaping-bee soon to be held at a neighbor's, and 
promised that if he would come, she would show 
him one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. 
Needless to say, when the time for the gathering 
arrived, Davy set out for the appointed place. 

It appears that the girl and her mother had re- 
ceived some word of Davy's errand in advance, 
for, when the lad put in an appearance, a talkative 
old Irish woman hastened to address him with 
flattering phrases, praising his red cheeks and 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 29 

telling him in unmistakable terms how glad she 
would be to have him as a son-in-law. Then the 
daughter appeared, and Davy was pleased with her 
from the first, for she was bright, laughing, and 
pretty. They sat and talked together in the free 
and easy way of the simple backwoods life ; they 
danced the reel together, and played the rollick- 
ing games, every moment adding to the pleasure 
they took in each other's society, until, when the 
party broke up, Davy, who had already been ad- 
dressed by the girl's mother as *' son-in-law," went 
home walking on air. 

The prospect of marriage again put ambition into 
Davy's breast. He lost no time in making a bar- 
gain with the Quaker to work six months for a 
second-rate horse ; for, next to his rifle, a horse was 
of most value to the frontiersman. 

After five or six weeks Davy decided to visit the 
Irish lassie and see if his first impressions of her 
were correct; so, mounting a horse, he rode the 
fifteen miles to her home. To his disappointment 
she was not there when he arrived. But he waited 
for her, and when the girl appeared, she was accom- 
panied by another young fellow who was evidently 
paying court to her. The situation was a little 
awkward, but Davy determined to stand his 
ground. After a time, however, he made ready to 



30 DAVY CROCKETT 

go. He was fifteen miles from home, and it was 
growing dark. Just as he was about to mount his 
horse, he caught a twinkle in the girl's eye which 
meant that she wanted him to stay, and by that 
token he knew he had won. That was Saturday 
night ; and his visit lasted till Monday. 

About two weeks after this, a very romantic 
incident added fuel to the flame. One day, when 
off on a wolf hunt, Davy lost his way, and near 
nightfall he espied a young girl ^'streaking it" 
through the woods at breakneck speed. He at 
once gave chase. Coming up to her, he saw to his 
amazement it was his sweetheart who herself had 
lost her way while hunting for her father's horses. 
Here was a dilemma ; night coming on, no shelter, 
and neither of them with the least idea where they 
were. 

At length, as night fell, they caught the glimmer 
of a light from a cabin door and lost no time 
making themselves known. They met a kindly 
welcome, for such was the hospitable way with 
these frontier people, who gladly gave them food 
and shelter. 

Now Davy determined to have the date of the 
marriage fixed. First, however, he must pay for 
his horse, and, to shorten the time of service, he 
turned his rifle over to the Quaker. 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 31 

Then, astride his own horse, he sought out the 
home of Polly Finlay, for that was the name of the 
Httle Irish girl, to induce her to set the day ; but 
imagine his surprise to find, on his broaching the 
subject, that Polly's mother had changed her mind 
and was *'as savage toward him as a meat ax." 
Whatever the reason may have been, she made a 
fierce attack on the young suitor, while the daughter 
and the meek father stood helplessly by. But 
somehow Davy gathered from Polly's looks, or 
from signs she made to hun, that she was on his 
side, and that was enough for him; he didn't 
care for the rest of the family if he had Polly. 

A few days later Davy was again before the door 
of the Irishman's cabin. This time he was not 
alone, for the whole neighborhood knew about the 
affair, and had gathered along the way to go with 
him to get his bride. 

In the company were one of Davy's older brothers 
and his wife, and a younger brother and sister, 
showing at least that Davy's family approved, if 
Polly's mother didn't. Davy came on his own 
horse and led another one, probably borrowed 
from the kind Quaker. It had a blanket strapped 
on for a saddle, and a rude bridle of rope or strips 
of hide, decorated, probably, with green leaves and 
flowers. 



32 DAVY CROCKETT 

As they approached, Mrs. Finlay stood in the 
doorway, arms akimbo and eyes aflame. She 
probably had expected to meet Davy alone on his 
calling for his bride-to-be, and was prepared to give 
him a warm reception; but what to do with the 
whole neighborhood about her, all in holiday mood, 
and all bent on seeing Davy win out, was something 
of a puzzle, even to her Irish wit. 

Davy rode straight up to the door and without 
dismounting asked Polly if she was ready. She 
said she was, and, without any delay, she mounted 
the horse Davy was leading. It was a dramatic 
moment that followed. All expected to see the 
mother fly between them and make a scene. But 
she didn't. Her mother-heart weakened. Her 
only child, her pretty girl, was going away, perhaps 
never to come back! She had looked forward to 
giving her as fine a wedding as she could afford, 
and now she was going to a justice of the peace 
without her, and there would be no wedding feast, 
no dancing, and no merrymaking! She would 
never get over the sorrow and disgrace of it. 

The old father went as far as the gate, as Davy 
and the girl were leaving, and begged them to come 
back and be married in his home. Davy refused 
point-blank unless the mother asked them to. It 
took but a moment for the father to gain her con- 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 33 

sent and to signal to Davy to come back. Then 
every one rushed pell-mell into the little one-room 
cabin, refreshments were produced, the justice of 
the peace was summoned by a swift messenger, 
and the knot was tied as tight as it ever has been 
tied by a bishop in a great cathedral, to the music 
of a big organ and a white-robed choir. 

Davy was now eighteen and his wife probably 
several years younger. Their entire capital stock 
with which to begin married life was a cheap horse 
and the clothes on their backs ; and yet Davy said 
he felt rich. He was indeed rich in the true love of 
a pretty girl who could spin and weave and cook 
and do anything required of a frontier woman, 
which was nearly everything. And he possessed a 
resolute heart, a strong arm, a healthy body, a 
merry disposition, and a profound beHef in himself. 

The young couple had no home, no furniture, 
no ground, no money ; and Davy had even parted 
with his gun to help pay for his horse. But it was 
not so bad as it now seems, for people's necessities 
in those days were few, and luxuries there were 
none. The woods and streams were teeming with 
game, the soil needed only to be tickled with a 
stick to grow corn, clothes were made from cloth 
woven at home, a cabin could be built and furni- 
ture could be made in a few days by the aid of a 



34 DAVY CROCKETT 

knife and an ax, dishes were made of wood, with 
here and there some pewter pieces, while fuel lay 
all about. A horse and a cow, a good gun, a sharp 
ax, and good health were ample capital. Indeed, 
the settler's life was not far removed from that of 
the Indian, in the simplicity of its wants. 

After a party given by Davy's parents at the 
tavern to celebrate the marriage, and a few days 
spent at Davy's home, the young couple rented 
a cheap cabin near Polly's old home; and with 
fifteen dollars loaned them by the friendly Quaker, 
they ''furnished" it and began housekeeping. 
Here they lived for two years and here two sons 
were born to them. At the end of these two years 
Davy had not saved anything, though in addition 
to the horse he had two colts ; and his wife's parents 
had given him two cows and two calves. 

As with his parents and grandparents before him, 
Davy decided to go west. He had heard much of 
the fertile country beyond the Cumberland Moun- 
tains. He was making nothing where he was, and 
thought that by going into a new, unsettled country 
he might, in a short time, build a cabin and raise a 
crop, and thus become the independent owner of 
four hundred acres. 

With Davy, to resolve was to do; so, bidding 
good-by to the home folks and the neighbors, 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 35 

he started with his little family on a four-hundred- 
mile journey to the West. There were three grown 
people and two children in the party. Polly rode 
on one horse with the two babies, Davy was on 
foot, leading the two colts, on whose backs were 
strapped their few belongings ; and, by their side, 
riding another horse, was Polly's father, who was 
going to see them safely through the wilderness 
and settled in their new home. It makes a picture 
that was familiar and common enough in those days, 
but seemingly impossible now. Think of the rough 
and uncertain trail of four hundred miles through a 
wilderness and over mountains ! Think of the wild 
beasts and the Indians who at that time were be- 
coming restless and threatening ! Here and there 
a friendly cabin might offer shelter at night, but 
more often they must camp in the open beside the 
trail. 

At length, footsore and weary, the little company 
reached a beautiful spot where they decided to end 
their long journey and build the new home. It was 
where a stream known as Mulberry Creek flowed 
into the Elk River, near the Alabama line, in what 
is now Lincoln County, Tennessee. Here Polly's 
father helped them cut the timber and build the 
cabin. This done, he went back alone to his home, 
at the end of the long trail through the forests. 



36 DAVY CROCKETT 

David Crockett was of too restless a nature to 
stay long in one place, so in two years we find him 
moving again, — this time to a spot about forty 
miles east, in what is now Franklin County, Ten- 
nessee, and about ten miles from the present town 
of Winchester. 



CHAPTER IV 

Scouting in the Creek War 

We must now turn for a time from home-making 
and farming, or rather from hunting and fishing 
(for David Crockett was more of a hunter than a 
farmer), to fighting and bloodshed. 

In the year 1813 the Indians, and particularly 
the powerful and warlike Creeks, were giving the 
settlers of the South and the West great anxiety. 
Rumors were abroad of Indian raids on peaceful 
settlements; Tecumseh, the great Indian chief, 
had gone from the great lakes to Florida, inciting 
the Indians to rise against the palefaces who had 
come to take away their sacred hunting-grounds. 
Tecumseh was a wonderful orator, and the fire of 
his eloquence kindled trouble wherever he went. 
England and the United States were at war. The 
mother country had arrogantly claimed the right 
to search our vessels at sea and impress our seamen. 
She was now sending her emissaries into the coun- 
try to bribe the Indians to go on the warpath 
against our people, many of whom, in their widely 

37 



38 DAVY CROCKETT 

scattered wilderness homes, were without the means 
of self-protection. 

But despite oratory, bribes, and threats, many 
of the Indians remained friendly to the Americans, 
or at least neutral, and among them were the 
Cherokees. The Creeks were the first to go on the 
warpath, particularly that portion of them led by 
Red Eagle, or Weatherford, as he was also called. 
Red Eagle was an Indian of three-quarter white 
blood, the son of a Creek woman, herself the 
daughter of a Spanish father and Indian mother. 

The Creeks (so called because the country they 
inhabited was full of small streams or creeks) when 
first known to the settlers inhabited a portion of 
Florida; later they moved up into Alabama and 
Mississippi, inhabiting the territory between the 
Ocmulgee and Talapoosa rivers. This region is 
known as the ''Creek country." Those who re- 
mained in Florida were known as Seminoles or Wan- 
derers. The Creeks had helped the British in the 
war of the Revolution and now they were again 
the enemies of the Americans. 

The massacre of Fort Mimms, which occurred 
on August 30, 1 8 13, opened the eyes of the Ameri- 
can settlers to their danger. They saw that 
they must at once put an army into the field against 
the redskins, or see their homes laid in ashes and 



SCOUTING IN THE CREEK WAR 39 

their wives and children murdered or carried away 
captives. 

Fort Mimms was in the southern part of Ala- 
bama. It had a small garrison numbering, per- 
haps, one hundred and fifty soldiers and a hundred 
women, children, and negro servants. Major 
Beasley was the commandant. The fort con- 
sisted of a stockade surrounding a few acres of 
ground in which were several blockhouses. There 
had been no serious trouble with the Indians for 
a long time, and the settlers had built homes in the 
surrounding country, feeHng that in case of dan- 
ger they could find safety in the fort. The gates 
were kept open, and a feeling of security prevailed. 

One day a negro boy came running, wild-eyed 
and breathless, through the gates, shouting that 
when out looking for stray cattle, he had seen 
many Indians, smeared red with war paint, skulk- 
ing through the woods. The garrison refused to 
beheve him, and he nearly got a flogging for trying 
to frighten the people with so wild a story. Again, 
after two or three days, he came in from another 
tramp and reported with more excitement than 
ever that he had seen countless Indians moving 
on the fort. This time he actually was flogged 
for his untruthfulness ! 

But even as the poor black boy writhed under 



40 DAVY CROCKETT 

the lash, the Indians were before the stockade — 
fifteen hundred of them — with Red Eagle at their 
head. One historian says that their appearance 
was so sudden there was no time to close the gates ; 
while another states that some of the Indians ran 
to the stockade with pointed sticks which they 
drove into the holes made to shoot from in case of 
attack; that other Indians set to work chopping 
an opening in the barricade ; and that as fast as 
one lot was cut down by the fire of the besieged 
another ran up to take its place. 

In a very short time an overwhelming force of 
yelling demons, hideous in war paint and brandish- 
ing tomahawks, poured in on the pitifully small 
band of defenders, who, taking refuge in or behind 
the few blockhouses, determined to sell their lives 
as dearly as possible. 

After a desperate resistance, a few survivors, 
with the women and children, took refuge in one 
of these houses. But the Indians set fire to it 
and killed all who tried to leave it. Only seven- 
teen of the garrison escaped massacre, while more 
than three hundred of the Indians paid for their 
victory with their lives. 

The story of the massacre spread throughout 
the western country like wildfire. If this could 
happen in a peaceful settlement in Southern Ala- 




Bunker Hill Monument. 

" / went to Buftker Hill where they were erecting a monuf?ient to those 
who fell in that daybreak battle of our rising glory. . . . I resolved on 
that holy ground, as I had done elsewhere, to go for my country, always 
and everywhere." — Davy Crockett. (See page 136.) 



SCOUTING IN THE CREEK WAR 41 

bama, what was to prevent its happening at any 
point in the new and sparsely settled country 
stretching from the lakes to the gulf? This ques- 
tion was asked in every settler's cabin and by every 
camp fire, and its answer was a call to the men of 
the frontier to rise and punish the savages, and 
prevent their depredations before it was too late. 

David Crockett, in his lonely cabin, heard the 
story of Fort Mimms. At once his fighting blood 
was up, and he determined to volunteer. 

Mounting his horse, Crockett rode to Winchester, 
ten miles away, and after Kstening to a speech 
urging men to enlist for sixty days, he was the 
second or third man to offer his services. Then 
he returned to his home, bade his wife and little 
boys good-by, and, joining a company of sturdy 
fellows like himself, proceeded to Beaty's Spring. 
Here men were pouring in from all the surrounding 
country, — enough to make an army of thirteen 
hundred, as full of grit as any who ever mounted 
horses for war. When the little army was ready to 
start, their leader gave the chance to return home to 
any one who wanted it, but not one man of the 
thirteen hundred stepped from the ranks. 

As soon as Red Eagle, or Weatherford, saw that 
two armies were preparing to take the field under 
General Andrew Jackson, he realized that in the 



42 DAVY CROCKETT 

end the Indians must lose their fight. Jackson 
had sent word to the Indians that they must bring 
Red Eagle to him bound and a prisoner. No 
sooner was the command given than that powerful 
chief himself suddenly appeared before the general 
and made that remarkable speech which began, 
''I am Weatherford, the chief who commanded 
at the capture of Fort Mimms; I desire peace 
for my people, and have come to ask it." General 
Jackson was so taken aback by the bravery of the 
chieftain in thus walking voluntarily into his 
presence, where he could expect nothing but death, 
that he let him depart again to his people. 

Opportunity came quickly for Crockett to dis- 
tinguish himself. Major Gibson told Captain 
Jones of Davy's company that he wanted two of 
his best riflemen, who knew the woods, to accom- 
pany a small party across the Tennessee River on a 
reconnoitering expedition and learn what they 
could of the whereabouts and the plans of the 
Indians. Captain Jones at once suggested Davy 
Crockett. The Major, liking his looks and bearing, 
— for he was now twenty-seven, full-bearded, 
strong and healthy, with a clear eye and steady 
nerve, — told Davy to select the other scout. 
Crockett selected a young man by the name of 
George Russell. But when Crockett presented 



SCOUTING IN THE CREEK WAR 43 

Russell to the major, the latter was displeased and 
said he did not like the youthful appearance of the 
fellow ; that he had not enough whiskers ! Crockett 
was a little nettled at this. He thought that if 
courage was to be measured by the beard, a goat 
would be preferred to a man ! He gave the 
major to understand that the young man was of 
the right stuff, and Russell was accepted. 

The scouting party, consisting of thirteen, well 
mounted, started out the next morning and ere- 
long crossed the Tennessee River at Ditto's Land- 
ing. The next morning, after being joined by an 
Indian trader who offered to go along as a guide, 
the party divided into two parts. Major Gibson 
took command of one and Crockett the other. The 
two parties were to travel ahead by different trails 
and meet again at a point more than fifteen miles 
distant, where two roads joined. 

On the way, Crockett's party met a half-breed 
who promised to join them at the rendezvous that 
night ; and, as in traveling and in camp they had 
to keep themselves concealed as much as possible, 
it was agreed that when Jack, the half-breed, 
approached the place of meeting, he was to give the 
shrill ''hoot, hoot" of an owl, which Crockett was 
to answer in the same way. One might think that 
the keen ears of Indians could distinguish between 



44 DAVY CROCKETT 

the voice of a human being and that of an owl. 
The choice of this signal shows how closely the men 
of the frontier learned to imitate the wild life 
about them. 

At nightfall Crockett and his companions reached 
the point agreed on, but Major Gibson's party had 
not arrived. Camp was made in an obscure hol- 
low, a little way from the trail. About ten o'clock 
the hoot of the owl being heard and answered, 
Jack, the half-breed, joined them. 

The next morning. Major Gibson not having 
yet come up, Crockett and his men rode on twenty 
miles farther to a Cherokee town, where they 
stopped at the cabin of a squaw-man whose wife 
was a Creek. This man gave them a friendly re- 
ception, but told them with fear and trembling 
that ten Creek Indians, in war paint, had just left 
his place and would shortly return; and that he 
was afraid if they found him entertaining white 
men, they all would be killed. Crockett laughed at 
his fears, and gave him to understand that he was 
looking for just that sort of Indians, and that he 
was not going back till he found them. 
- ' After dinner that day Crockett led his men 
eight miles farther to the camp of some friendly 
Creeks. Some of the men wanted to return home, 
but Davy shamed them out of the notion. On the 



SCOUTING IN THE CREEK WAR 45 

way they met two negroes who were riding good 
ponies and carrying rifles. One of these negroes 
Crockett sent back to Ditto's Landing, the other 
he took with him. 

At the friendly Indian camp they found some 
forty Indians, men, women, and children. It was 
night, and they were having a good time about the 
camp fires. Some of the young Indians were prac- 
ticing with the bow and arrow. Crockett and his 
men joined in the merrymaking, while the negro 
busied himself getting what news he could from the 
older Indians. He learned that a large body of 
warlike Indians were coming, and that they were 
afraid if the white men were found with them they 
would all be killed. Crockett told them if a hostile 
Indian appeared, he would take the fellow's skin 
home to make moccasins of ! He and his men lay 
down to sleep that night with their hands on their 
rifles and their horses saddled ready for instant 
action. 

Late in the night came a frightful yell which 
brought every one to his feet. An Indian runner 
had come in to report that the Creeks had been seen 
all day crossing the Coosa River near Ten Islands 
and were on the warpath, bent on giving battle to 
the American army under General Jackson. 

At once the Indians took to their heels. Crockett 



46 DAVY CROCKETT 

and his men hurriedly mounted their horses and 
flew back over the trail. Already they found the 
country filling up with ''red sticks," as the hostile 
Creeks were called. The party covered sixty-five 
miles in less than twelve hours, and Davy made his 
report. The officers, much to his disgust, would 
not believe him; but as Major Gibson's party 
came in the next day bringing an even worse stor>^, 
an urgent call for help was sent to Jackson at Fay- 
etteville; at the same time the army was set to 
work throwing up breastworks. General Jackson 
was prompt to respond, and the following day his 
army came into camp almost exhausted from their 
forced march. 

A Uttle later General Jackson sent eighteen hun- 
dred volunteers, Crockett among them, under com- 
mand of Colonel Coffee, on an expedition against 
some Indians who occupied a village called Black 
Warrior (now known as Tuscaloosa), about a hun- 
dred miles to the south. On the march they 
forded the Tennessee River at Melton's Bluff. 
The river here was two miles wide and shallow, 
but so rocky was the bottom that some of the 
horses were caught in the crevices of the rocks 
and perished, leaving their riders to finish the 
journey on foot. 

When the soldiers reached Black Warrior, they 



SCOUTING IN THE CREEK WAR 47 

found it deserted. Through their spies the In- 
dians had learned of the coming of the enemy and 
had fled, leaving their corn in the fields and in the 
bins, and great quantities of dried beans. These 
Indians had learned some of the ways of the white 
men. Their cabins were tastefully furnished, and 
they cultivated the fields round about. Colonel 
Coffee's men helped themselves to the corn and 
beans, burned the village, and proceeded to a point 
where they were to rejoin the main force. 



CHAPTER V 

Fighting the Indians 

At this time the soldiers suffered much from 
lack of proper rations. Indeed, from the time 
General Jackson had come to their relief, bring- 
ing the number of men in camp up to nearly three 
thousand, the question of provisions had been a 
serious one. 

On the return march Crockett asked permission 
to leave the ranks for a hunt. The permission was 
granted, though grudgingly. Such a venture meant 
great danger, since the hostiles were on every 
side of them. Scarcely was he gone an hour ere 
he returned carrying a fine deer across the neck of 
his horse. 

He had not killed the deer himself, but had found 
it lying on the ground still warm, with an arrow 
piercing its vitals. An Indian had killed it and, 
when ready to carry it away, Crockett had ap- 
peared on the scene. A more cautious or less 
brave man than Davy would have fled from the 
spot, for at any moment an arrow might have sped 

48 



FIGHTING THE INDIANS 49 

from behind a rock or tree and stretched him 
out beside the deer. Crockett knew the joy this 
prize would bring to his starving comrades, and 
though it went against the grain for him, as a true 
hunter, to carry away another's game, he dis- 
mounted, lifted it on to his horse, and bore it into 
camp. Crockett said he could have sold the deer 
for almost any price he might have asked, but 
that wasn't his way. ''Whenever," he says, "I 
had anything, and saw a fellow-being suffering, I 
was more anxious to relieve him than to benefit 
myself. And this is one of the true secrets of my 
being a poor man to this day. But it is my way ; 
and while it has often left me an empty purse, yet 
it has never left my heart empty of consolations 
which money couldn't buy, the consolation of hav- 
ing sometimes fed the hungry and covered the 
naked." He gave away all his deer except a small 
part for himself and his mess. To men living 
mainly on parched com this meal must have been 
a feast indeed. 

The next day, in hunting through a canebrake, 
he ran across a drove of fat hogs that belonged 
to friendly Cherokees; and these taking fright 
ran plump into the midst of the soldiers, who lost 
no time in securing fresh pork. A cow belonging 
to these same Indians came into possession of the 

E 



50 DAVY CROCKETT 

hungry soldiers. We may be glad that this seem- 
ingly cruel treatment of friendly redskins was 
partly atoned for by Colonel Coffee's giving them 
an order on the government for the value of the 
property; but no one knows whether the poor 
Indians received their money or not. Let us hope, 
for our nation's honor, that they did ; for it should 
be the proud boast of our country that even the 
weakest of its people may find justice as sure and 
as abundant as the strongest. 

After Colonel Coffee's command had joined the 
main body. General Jackson led his army to a 
place on the Coosa River known as Ten Islands, 
where he sought to establish a base of suppHes. 
Here, learning of a gathering of Indians in a village 
some ten miles away, he sent a force under Colonel 
Coffee, who had now been promoted to the rank 
of general, to attack them. Crockett was one 
of the party. A portion of the American force 
consisted of friendly Cherokees who wore, as a 
mark to distinguish them from their hostile brothers, 
a white feather and a deer's tail fastened in the 
hair. 

This battle, known as the battle of Tallush- 
natchee, was one of the bloodiest and cruelest 
of the Creek War. As the soldiers approached 
the camp, they divided into two parties, one pro- 



FIGHTING THE INDIANS 51 

ceeding to the right, the other to the left. Stealth- 
ily they crept along behind rocks and trees until 
the heads of the two lines met beyond the camp, 
making the circle of the invaders complete. 
Then a small detachment was sent in to show fight 
and draw the Indians out. The ruse was success- 
ful. With a yell the hostiles charged on the ad- 
vance body which, after firing a volley, drew 
back. At once the main line rushed in, and the 
savages, overwhelmed by the numbers of their 
foes, retreated headlong to their huts, where from 
shelter they fought like demons for their lives. 
Finally, seeing themselves hemmed in on all sides, 
many tried to surrender. The squaws, some with 
their children, ran toward the invaders. Lifting 
their hands and crying, they dropped upon their 
knees, embracing the legs of the soldiers, and 
imploring that they and their people be saved from 
destruction. 

At last the remnant of the warriors, nearly all 
of them wounded, together with their women and 
children, took refuge in one small hut. The 
soldiers advanced upon it, firing as they ran. 
Suddenly a powerful squaw dropped to the floor 
in the doorway, fixed an arrow, and, putting her 
feet against the bow and drawing the bowstring 
with all her strength, sent the missile straight into 



52 DAVY CROCKETT 

and nearly through the breast of a lieutenant. 
In an instant twenty bullets pierced her body. 
Then the soldiers, as savage as Indians ever 
were, shot at the helpless men and women huddled 
within the hut and, setting fire to it, burned it to 
the ground. Forty-six Indians — men, women, 
and children — perished within its walls. 

Stories are told of the stoicism, the stolid bravery, 
of the Indians in this battle. Crockett says that 
he saw a young boy of about twelve years, wounded 
in the arm and thigh and unable to crawl, lying 
so close to the burning hut that the heat scorched 
his skin, yet he made no outcry nor asked for 
mercy. 

Every Indian in this battle, one hundred and 
eighty-six in number, was either killed or made 
prisoner, while of the whites five were killed and 
forty wounded. 

The detachment then returned to the main army 
at Fort Str others, the name given the defenses 
at Ten Islands. 

A little later an Indian runner suddenly ap- 
peared, travel-worn and in great distress, and 
begged at once to see the general. His story 
proved of great import, for within an hour the 
drums were beating and the men falling into line 
equipped for a forced march. 



FIGHTING THE INDIANS $3 

The Indian had come, with an urgent call for help, 
from Talladega, a small fort some thirty miles away, 
inhabited by about one hundred and fifty friendly 
Creeks. One historian says that the runner slipped 
away disguised as a hog. He told General Jackson 
that more than a thousand Creek warriors had 
laid siege to the fort and demanded that his people 
join them against the whites, adding that if they 
did not come out and fight with them, they would 
take their fort, ammunition, and provisions ; that 
his people had asked three days in which to decide, 
and had sent him at once to their paleface brothers 
to ask them to come to their assistance. 

One of the chief traits of General Jackson's 
character was his promptness. No sooner was the 
story told than two thousand men were on the 
way, eight hundred of them mounted. This left 
but a few men at Fort Strothers, but Jackson 
daily expected General White to arrive with reen- 
forcements, ammunition, and provisions. The 
latter he greatly needed, for his men had been 
reduced almost to starvation and were complain- 
ing bitterly. It is related that one day one of 
the soldiers, angered at seeing Jackson chewing 
something, asked for a share of it. Jackson took 
from his pocket a few raw acorns and offered them. 
That soldier was no longer heard to complain. 



54 DAVY CROCKETT 

On approaching Talladega, Jackson's men de- 
ployed to the right and left in order to surround 
the place. The enemy, informed of the army's 
approach by their spies, were hidden a few rods 
beyond the fort where the ground fell away to a 
little stream, and where under the banks, which 
were edged with thick bushes, they could see the 
whites approach without being themselves dis- 
covered. Before the army appeared they sent 
word to the Indians in the fort that the palefaces 
were coming with fine horses, guns, and blankets, 
and that if they would come out and help them win 
the fight, the plunder would be divided between 
them. The besieged Indians pretended to agree. 

The soldiers came on cautiously. Major Russell 
and his company of scouts in the lead. Suddenly 
the friendly Creeks appeared in great numbers on 
the parapets of the fort, gesticulating and calling, 

"How-d'y-do, brother ! How-d'y-do ! " 

Their strange actions meant nothing unfavor- 
able to Russell and his men, who kept on advancing 
past the fort. Suddenly two Indians leaped from 
the barricades and, running to Russell's horse, 
seized its bridle and turned it about, at the same 
time quickly making it known that he and his men 
were riding into the very teeth of death. Their 
strange greeting had been intended as a warning, 



FIGHTING THE INDIANS 55 

and Russell had failed to understand it. At the 
same moment the Indians, painted scarlet, charged 
from cover, yelling like mad. The only escape 
for Russell's men was to leap from their horses and 
take refuge in the fort ; and this they did, while the 
animals went galloping back to the main body of 
the army, which was then moving up to the attack. 

Quickly the hostiles were surrounded and then 
ensued a bloody encounter. Trying to escape by 
one way, the Indians came upon a solid wall of 
fire ; then turning, they tried another way only to 
meet another such wall ; so, driven hither and yon, 
they fell like leaves in a storm, until four hundred 
lay dead or wounded on the field, and another 
victory was put to the credit of Jackson. Fifteen 
soldiers were killed and eighty-five wounded. 
The friendly Indians of Talladega joined their 
rescuers and marched with them back to Fort 
Strothers. 

On his return Jackson found that General White 
had failed him. This was a bitter disappointment 
to the volunteers. The sixty days for which they 
had joined the army had elapsed. They had seen 
hard and dangerous service. It was winter, and 
their clothes were Httle better than rags. Their 
horses were ill fed and feeble. The men had little 
to eat, and there was no prospect of improvement. 



56 DAVY CROCKETT 

Murmurs filled the camp and rumors of defec- 
tion, which soon became open revolt. Many de- 
manded that they be allowed to return home, 
get a new outfit, and recover their strength, promis- 
ing to return. But Jackson refused; there was 
work to do. The Indians were not yet subdued. 
They must remain and share the fate of the regu- 
lars. 

The volunteers protested and finally took matters 
into their own hands. Jackson was not a man 
to be easily balked. Stationing his regulars in 
double file across the one bridge the rebels must 
cross if they attempted to return home, and 
planting his one cannon where it could command 
the approach, he announced that any attempt to 
leave would be met by hot shot. 

The regulars themselves were secretly in sym- 
pathy with the malcontents, and as they took 
their positions some of them called to the dis- 
gruntled fellows who were getting ready to leave, 
^'When you come, bring our knapsacks." 

Soon came the crisis. The regulars cocked their 
rifles, while the cannoneer stood ready at the 
muzzle of his gun. General Jackson gave the dis- 
satisfied men a few seconds in which to retire. 
But the volunteers came on, their guns clicking 
as they advanced, straight to the bridge, over it, 



FIGHTING THE INDIANS 57 

and away; and not a gun was fired! Crockett 
was one of those who, having served ninety days, 
when he had enlisted for only sixty, marched away 
from Fort Strothers that day, looking into the 
business end of a double line of rifles ! 

No blame can be attached to the men who left 
Jackson at Fort Strothers. They had done their 
duty as they had agreed. They had overstayed 
their time. They had asked only to return home 
for a time, many of them agreeing to reenlist 
when they had seen their families and secured 
fresh horses, clothing, and supplies. 



CHAPTER VI 

Friendly and Hostile Indians 

David Crockett enKsted again, this time 
for six months ; and again he became one of Major 
Russell's scouts. 

The next move of the army was made in January, 
1814, when it pushed on to Horseshoe Bend on the 
Tallapoosa River. The army consisted now of 
one thousand whites and two hundred and fifty 
Cherokees and friendly Creeks. Arriving at its 
destination, it camped in a hollow square. That 
night the tired soldiers fell asleep around the camp 
fires, little dreaming that a band of hostiles lay in 
ambush, awaiting a favorable time of attack. 

Two hours before daybreak a chorus of piercing 
yells brought the sleeping men to their feet. Sharp 
words of command rang through the camp. Some 
ran to pile brush upon the glowing embers of the 
camp fires, to put out the light that made them 
clear targets for the savages ; others grasped their 
rifles and scurried for the trees and bushes, hoping 
to draw the Indians out of cover, but with no avail. 

58 



FRIENDLY AND HOSTILE INDIANS 59 

The wily savages saw the trick and kept them- 
selves in the dark; only the flash of a gun here 
and there gave sign of their whereabouts. At 
daylight the Indians withdrew, carrying their 
dead and wounded with them. Four soldiers lay 
dead on the field. 

A Httle later, when the army was crossing a wide 
creek, the Indians again caught it unawares. 
More than half of the men had crossed when the 
Indians gave battle to those who remained. As 
usual they shot from ambush. Every rock and 
tree seemed to be alive with them. Taking delib- 
erate aim, they brought down their victims at nearly 
every shot. 

The company of scouts, of which Crockett was 
one, with the aid of their one cannon, a six-pounder, 
rushed to the rescue ; then the Indians fled, leaving 
one hundred and eighty-nine dead. Twenty of 
Jackson's men were killed, while seventy-five suf- 
fered from wounds. This fight is known as the 
battle of Enotochapco. Crockett says that at this 
time Jackson was nearer being ' kicked" than he 
was at any other, and that he himself was mighty 
glad when the fight was over. 

The Indians of this part of the country having 
been taught some wholesome lessons, Jackson 
called for volunteers to march on Pensacola, 



6o DAVY CROCKETT 

Florida, which was held by the Spanish and 
Indians. British ships manned with British sol- 
diers were in the harbor, giving them aid and com- 
fort. Crockett wanted a chance at the British, 
who were back of all the trouble with the Indians, 
and quickly volunteered to serve under old Major 
Russell. 

Jackson's army had been gone several days when 
Major Russell and a hundred and thirty men started. 
The march lay across Alabama to the junction of 
the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, near Fort 
Mimms, where the massacre that opened the 
Creek War had taken place. 

On their arrival they found that Jackson's army 
had left their horses at this place, because of the 
scarcity of forage on the way, and had proceeded 
to Pensacola on foot. Major Russell's command 
did the same, and after a forced march of eighty 
miles in two days, carrying their guns, blankets, 
and provisions, they reached their destination; 
but too late, for Pensacola had surrendered. 

The small Spanish garrison, aided by the British 
ships in the harbor, had offered a weak resistance 
to Jackson's three thousand men of iron. The 
town was quickly given up and the British sailed 
away. 

There was nothing now for the army to do but 



FRIENDLY AND HOSTILE INDIANS 6l 

retrace its steps to where it had left its horses, 
and then march to other points threatened by the 
English and the Indians. 

A portion of the command under Jackson 
marched to Mobile, where the British were expected ; 
while another portion under Major Russell, con- 
sisting of about eight hundred soldiers and two 
hundred Choctaws and Chickasaws, marched north 
into the interior of Alabama where scattering 
bands of Creeks were still on the warpath, despite 
their many defeats. 

On the way north the army passed Fort Mimms. 
Here, to the delight of the soldiers, many cattle 
that had belonged to the people of the fort before 
the massacre were found running wild. It did not 
take the hungry soldiers long to add them to their 
scanty store of provisions. The night after the 
killing, the camp was the scene of a great feast 
which presently became a wild revel, as, on that 
same evening, a boat-load of provisions, including 
a great quantity of drinkables, had come up the 
river from Mobile. 

The next day Major Russell, with sixteen sol- 
diers, of whom Crockett was one, and all the In- 
dians, crossed the Alabama and set out on a search 
for hostile Indians. After a march of a few hours, 
part of the time wading through icy water up to 



62 DAVY CROCKETT 

their armpits, their two scouts, who had been 
sent on ahead, came rushing back with the report 
that an Indian camp was just ahead of them. 
Preparations for battle were quickly made. The 
Indians smeared themselves with their hideous 
war paint and insisted on Major Russell, if he 
was to lead them, doing the same. The plan was 
for the sixteen soldiers to begin the charge which 
was to take the Indians by surprise, and, in the 
confusion that would result, the friendly Indians 
were to rush in with their knives and tomahawks 
and finish the job. 

But what was their chagrin when this band 
of nearly two hundred men, armed to the teeth 
and creeping stealthily through the woods, finally 
came in view of the ''hostile camp"; for they 
found only two wigwams situated on a little island 
in the river, occupied by a peaceful Indian, his 
squaw, and several children. 

While considering their next step, the report of 
a rifle and a single warwhoop drew their attention 
to another quarter. Every one, with musket 
primed and cocked, rushed in the direction of the 
sound, and in a moment came upon two Choctaws 
who were of their own number. The Indians told 
this story : — 

While stealing through the woods, they suddenly 



FRIENDLY AND HOSTILE INDIANS 63 

came upon two Creeks who were out looking for 
their horses. The Choctaws represented that they 
were running away from Jackson's army and were 
hungry. This made them all friends, and to- 
gether the four kindled a fire and sat down for a 
powwow and a pipe. The Creeks said they Hved 
on the island the party had just discovered, where 
the peaceful Indian and two women had been seen. 
After a time they separated, the two parties going 
in opposite directions. Suddenly one of the Choc- 
taws turned, took deadly aim, and shot in the 
back the one of the two Creeks that carried a gun. 
The other Creek, having only a bow and arrow, 
fled, closely pursued by the two Choctaws. The 
race was a short one ; the poor fellow dropped to 
the earth, brained by the butt ends of the muskets 
of his two treacherous pursuers. One of the 
savages struck so frenzied a blow that he broke 
the stock of his gun. Then, picking up the Creek's 
rifle, he fired it in the air and gave the warwhoop ; 
it was this the soldiers had heard a few moments 
before. Then the Choctaws cut off the heads of 
their victims. 

When the soldiers and Indians came upon the 
two dismembered bodies, they appear to have been 
crazed by the sight, for each dealt a blow at one 
of the heads with his war club. Then Davy 



64 DAVY CROCKETT 

Crockett, to please the Indians or for some other 
unknown reason, grasped a club and struck a 
vicious blow at a dissevered head. The Indians 
were delighted and called our hero ^'Warrior! 
Warrior !" But there was no true bravery in this 
act of Davy Crockett's. 

And now follows another incident not at all to 
the credit of Major Russell and his men. We have 
spoken of the two wigwams »of peaceful Indians 
on the little island. The two hundred soldiers and 
Indians now turned their attention to these. 

As night came on Russell's party lay concealed 
in the bushes that lined the river at a point oppo- 
site the island. Two friendly Creeks in the party 
went out on the bank of the stream and called 
out that they wanted a canoe sent over to them, as 
they wished to cross to the island. They were 
told by an Indian woman on the island that the 
canoe was already on the mainland, — that two 
of their men had used it that morning in crossing 
to look for their horses and the men had not re- 
turned. These were the two Indians treacherously 
killed. A Httle search revealed the hiding-place 
of the boat, which proved to be a large one. Loaded 
with forty picked Indian warriors, it was pushed 
out into the stream and headed for the little 
island. The unarmed Indian, seeing the number 



FRIENDLY AND HOSTILE INDIANS 65 

of the visitors and suspecting foul play, ran into 
the woods. The two squaws and their ten children 
fell an easy prey. They, together with what plun- 
der could be found, were carried into camp. No 
one knows the fate of the innocent captives, but 
Crockett himself tells us they were not killed. 
We can be glad at least for that. 

Shortly after this Major Russell's command 
rejoined the main army, which under Colonel Blue 
was on the Scambia River at Miller's Landing. 
From here the army entered upon a hard march 
across the state of Alabama to the Chattahoochee 
River, taking with them twenty days' rations of 
flour and eight days' rations of beef. Before they 
had gone three quarters of the distance their 
provisions, which had been doled out very carefully 
on the way, were exhausted. The expedition had 
met more trouble than it expected. Almost the 
whole way proved to be through tangled forests, 
deep morasses, or trackless wildernesses, with many 
and treacherous streams to be forded. There was 
no game to be had on the way for twelve hundred 
men, and no forage for the horses. 

Half starved, clothed only in rags, and despond- 
ent, the miserable company at the end of thirty-one 
days reached the banks of the Chattahoochee. 
Their scouts had told them that on its banks was 



66 DAVY CROCKETT 

a large Indian village ; so it was planned to attack 
this village at daybreak. Ravenous with hunger, 
soldiers and Indians alike looked forward to a speedy 
victory and a good meal of beans and com from the 
captured camp. 

As day broke the signal for battle was given. 
The Indians with a blood-curdling yell, and the 
whites with a shout of defiance, charged with a 
ferocity born of hunger and despair. But what 
was their dismay and disappointment to find not a 
soul in the village, and not so much as a crust to 
eat or a bone to pick ! 

After a gloomy consultation, the leaders decided 
to divide the army into two parties; one under 
Major Childs, to strike southwest in the hope of 
joining General Jackson who was returning from 
New Orleans; and the other, under Major Rus- 
sell, to go north in an attempt to reach Fort Decatur 
on the Tallapoosa River. Crockett was one of 
those who followed Russell. 

The Indians had now lost hope. Little danger 
from them was felt by the starving troops that in 
single file followed the Indian guides along the 
rough trails. Discipline was relaxed and men 
strayed at will from the path, searching for game. 
Crockett was easily the ablest hunter of them all ; 
and when, about the camp fire at night, the 



FRIENDLY AND HOSTILE INDIANS 67 

hunters threw into one pile the results of their 
shooting during the day, Davy's contribution 
was usually the biggest and the best. 

On the army reaching the Coosa River, Crockett 
paddled across and on the farther bank came upon 
an Indian. The usual way, as we have seen, was to 
ask no questions of the Indians encountered, but to 
shoot them. This happened time and again on the 
march, with no effort being made to find out whether 
the Indians were friendly or hostile. 

In this case Crockett acted with fairness. The 
Indian had a Httle com. Crockett might have 
killed him and helped himself. Instead, he took 
his hat from his head and, holding out a silver 
dollar to the red man, offered it for a hatful of corn. 
The Indian had no use for the money and shook 
his head ; then he grunted out : 

''You got any powder? You got bullet? Me 
swap my corn for powder and bullet." 

Gladly Crockett handed over ten charges of 
powder and ten bullets and received a hatful of 
corn. The Indian offered another hatful at the 
same price and Davy accepted. Taking off his 
hunting-shirt he made a bag of it, filled the bag 
with com, and with his prize he paddled back to 
join his comrades. He said he would not have 
taken fifty dollars for that com. 



68 DAVY CROCKETT 

Tottering with weakness, the army straggled 
into Fort Decatur. It was a small fort, and all 
it could spare to twelve hundred famishing men was 
one meal. 

Farther up the Coosa some fifty miles was Fort 
Williams. Perhaps here the half-starved troops 
might find provisions. But no; a ration of pork 
and one of flour was all that could be allowed to 
the hungry and disheartened men. 

Forty miles on up the river was Fort *Strothers, 
and the army pushed on laboriously. The horses 
and men were reduced to skeletons. Many of the 
former fell in their tracks, where they were left 
with their equipments, for the men lacked strength 
to carry the saddles, bridles, and blankets. On the 
way they passed Fort Talladega, where, as we know, 
the Indians met with a great defeat in December, 
1813 ; and where, Crockett says, the old battle 
ground looked like a gourd patch, so many were the 
skulls that lay strewn about. Before reaching 
Fort Strothers the a'rmy came upon some East Ten- 
nessee troops bound for Mobile. Davy found his 
youngest brother and some of his old neighbors 
among them. They furnished him with enough 
provisions to last him and his horse till the army 
reached its journey's end, the following day. 

Crockett, though he still had thirty days of 



K. 



FRIENDLY AND HOSTILE INDIANS 69 

his time to serve before he could get a discharge, 
here asked for a leave of absence that he might 
visit his home and family, and the leave was 
granted. His return home brought great joy to 
the little family whom he found safe and well. 



CHAPTER VII 
Trials and Triumphs 

Now for a time we are to turn away from scenes 
of war to those of peace. True, Crockett had 
yet a month to serve in the army, but when called 
to join it again to go on an expedition after In- 
dians, which he had reason to believe would be 
fruitless, he decided to remain at home, and 
finding a young man who was willing to take his 
place for the month's pay, he hired him to go in his 
stead and settled down to the peaceful life of a 
farmer. 

Indeed, the war was now practically over, for 
soon the British gave in and signed a treaty of peace 
with the United States, Jackson sealing it with a vic- 
tory in the battle of Chalmette, or New Orleans, as 
it is usually called. The Indians, deserted by their 
allies across the seas and everywhere beaten, ceased 
their depredations. Red Eagle was invited by 
General Jackson to visit him at the Hermitage, his 
home near Nashville, Tennessee, and there the great 
chief remained as a guest for almost a year. 

70 



TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS 71 

Peace had come, and with honor to the United 
States on land and sea, and to none more deservedly 
than to the regular and volunteer soldiers of the 
western wilderness. 

Now that we have followed Davy Crockett to 
his thirty-first year, we may pause for a moment 
to consider what we have learned of his character 
and disposition. 

We know that he was a mighty hunter, and that 
he loved to hunt. Indeed, he would have been a 
better farmer if he hadn't been so good a hunter. 
He knew no fear. He held himself as good as any 
man ; and when he couldn't prove it, he had a way 
of concealing his defects that was very ingenious 
and very successful. He was a good soldier, an 
able scout. He was generous and open-handed, and 
many a soldier had reason to love him for an act 
of self-sacrifice in the days of hunger in the camp or 
on the march. He loved his family and his home ; 
for, while he left them to fight the Indians, he be- 
lieved it was for their best good, and he took every 
occasion that offered to return to them. Out of 
these elements was to come a man who, despite 
his ignorance and his inexperience, was to leave 
a name in his country's history that will live as 
long as America cherishes the memory of her 
heroic founders. 



72 DAVY CROCKETT 

During these two years Davy Crockett was to 
experience the first real grief of his life. Polly, 
his wife, the mother of his three little children, 
sickened and died. She was only twenty-seven. 

Being left alone with three Httle children would 
present many a hard problem to a man, even 
though he were rich and surrounded by friends; 
but to Davy Crockett, alone in a wilderness home, 
far from friends, relatives, and neighbors, it was 
serious indeed. 

By good fortune he was able to induce his young- 
est brother and his wife to keep house for him. 
But kind and good as they were, Davy felt that 
his children needed a mother's care, so he set about 
finding another wife. 

Not far away, on a little farm of her own, lived 
a widow with her two little children. Her hus- 
band had been killed in the Indian campaign. 
Davy was not long in persuading her to join her lot 
with his. The marriage proved a fortunate one, 
as the woman was capable and industrious, and 
cared tenderly for the five little ones that now 
lived under Davy's roof. 

The country was now rapidly filling up. Great 
wagon trains, laden with household goods, were 
coming across the mountains, and immigrants 
were settling by thousands in the fertile prairies and 



"Trials and triumphs 73 

along the western streams. It is said that on one 
of the leading highways fifteen thousand wagons 
paid toll in 1817. 

Crockett watched the coming of this army of 
settlers with some uneasiness. He had no desire 
for society, and this appears strange in view of his 
jolly, social nature. He preferred the soHtude of 
the wilderness, where he could hunt and fish with 
plenty of ''elbow room." 

So, a few months after his second marriage 
Crockett started with three companions on an ex- 
plormg trip to Central Alabama, — whether to 
hunt or to find a new home we do not know. Prob- 
ably he had both objects m view. Soon the party 
was reduced to three. One of the men stepped on 
a rattlesnake which lay concealed in the leaves 
It stuck its fangs into his leg, and the poor fellow 
was left in a settler's cabin - to get well, we may 
hope. 

One night, having left their horses to graze 
near by, the three men fell asleep around their 
camp fire. In the early morning they were awak- 
ened by an unusual tinkling of the bells of their 
horses. A hunter's ears are keen to detect an un- 
usual sound. Crockett at once went to learn the 
cause, and found that the horses had taken French 
leave and started in the direction of home. He 



74 DAVY CROCKETT 

immediately set off in pursuit. For a long time he 
could hear the bells, but as he proceeded the sound 
grew fainter and fainter, showing that he was 
losing in the race. All that day he followed the 
animals' trail through forest and swamp, and by 
night he estimated he had traveled nearly fifty 
miles — and the horses had not been overtaken ! 

Now a further misfortune befell him; he was 
taken sick; his head thumped, his brain reeled, 
and a violent nausea attacked him. He could go 
no farther; and, turning to retrace his steps, he 
found after a time that his legs refused to carry 
him ; a moment later he fell to the ground and lay 
too sick to move. Then the thought came to him 
that he was going to die there in the wilderness, and 
that his fate would never be known. 

Several Indians happened along, after a little 
time; and, instead of leaving him to die as they 
might have done, and thus come into possession of 
a good gun, knife, and ammunition, they were kind 
to him. They made signs to him to show that they 
thought he was going to die. Indeed, he himself 
thought so. One of the Indians knew of a settler's 
cabin a mile and a half away and he proposed tak- 
ing the sick man there. This Indian carried Davy's 
gun, while poor Davy staggered along like a drunken 
man. The owner of the cabin was away from home, 



TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS 75 

but his good wife took Davy in and tenderly cared 
for him. The next day two of his neighbors, hap- 
pening by, heard of his pHght. They were riding 
horseback, and proposed to take turns carrying 
Davy till they got him back to where he had left 
his companions, but when they reached their 
destination, he was too sick to sit up, and was put 
to bed in the cabin of another settler who with 
his wife gave him good care. Here he lay at the 
point of death for several weeks. 

But Crockett was not born thus to die. As 
soon as he began to mend he began thinking about 
how he could get away. Seeing a wagoner passing 
one day, he induced him to take him to within 
twenty miles of his home; the last twenty miles 
was accomplished on horseback, the wagoner al- 
lowing him to hire one of his horses. The joy of 
his wife and httle ones on seeing him again was 
great indeed, for the two men who had started out 
with Davy had returned and reported that he was 
dead. 

About this time the government purchased a 
large tract of rich land from the Chickasaw In- 
dians. It lay in what is now Giles County, Ten- 
nessee, some eighty miles west of Crockett's home. 
Great stories were told of the richness of the soil 
and the abundance of game. The good hunting, 



76 DAVY CROCKETT 

of course, appealed to Crockett, so shouldering his 
rifle he again left home to better his fortune. 

When he reached a spot at the head of Shoal 
Creek, he took sick with fever and ague. Strangely 
enough, while he was compelled to remain there he 
became so well pleased with the place that he deter- 
mined to make the spot his home, and when well 
enough to travel, he returned for his family. He 
bade farewell to the old place with little regret, 
for he had come to look upon it as a sickly country 
and too crowded for comfort. 

Always in a new country the first to come in are 
men of adventurous nature, and, for the most part, 
of bad character, some of them criminals escaping 
from justice. It was these bad men that made the 
Indians distrust and even hate the whites. The 
new Chickasaw country was passing through this 
experience, and something had to be done to pre- 
vent lawlessness ; so the decent settlers got together 
and selected certain of their number to act as mag- 
istrates and constables to keep order. There was 
no law for this. The people did it by common 
agreement. These magistrates usually knew 
nothing of law. They were chosen because of their 
sturdy common sense and their abiHty to make 
themselves respected and feared. Davy Crockett 
being that sort of a man, he became a magistrate. 



TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS 77 

This was the beginning of Crockett's career as a 
lawmaker, though he admits that at that time 
he '^had never read a page in a law book" in 
his life. 

There were no law books, no lawyers, no laws 
that any one in that wild community knew. If a 
man wouldn't pay a just debt, the magistrate 
told the constable to bring him in and, after a 
quick hearing, judgment was passed on him. If the 
culprit owed a debt that he would not pay, his gun, 
his horse, or even his cabin was taken from him and 
sold to pay the debt and the costs. If he was 
caught stealing, the magistrate generally ordered 
that he be flogged, or that his cabin be burned, or 
even that he be sent out of the country. To every 
offense Crockett fitted a punishment that, in his 
rude' sense of justice, he thought right; and from 
what we know of him we may venture the opinion 
that he gave satisfaction to the people who put him 
in office — which is more than can be said of some 
of our latter-day judges. 

After a while this part of the country was made 
part of Giles County, and Crockett was legally 
appointed a squire, or Justice of the Peace. Now 
he was in a curious dilemma. The law compelled 
him to keep a record of what he did. When he gave 
an order to the constable, it had to be in writing ; 



78 DAVY CROCKETT 

and Davy could do little more than write his 
name. Luckily, he had a constable who could 
do it for him, so he got along to the satisfaction 
of the good people of the community, until such 
time as by practice and perseverance he was able 
to keep his own records and make out his own 
warrants. There is hanging now on the walls of 
the Alamo a copy of a ''return'^ made out by him 
while a justice in Giles County, which is well 
written. Crockett says, "My judgments were 
never appealed from ; and if they had been, they 
would have stuck like Xvax, as I gave my decisions 
on the principles of common justice and honesty 
between man and man, and relied on natural-born 
sense, and not on law learning, to guide me ; for 
I had never read a page in a law book in all 
my life." 

Davy was becoming popular with the people 
about him. He was a just judge and full of ready 
wit. He had a great memory for anecdotes and 
could tell a funny story to the taste of his listeners. 
His language was crude and unpolished, but it 
came easy and never failed to produce the effect 
he wanted. 

They were raising a regiment in that part of 
the state, and a well-to-do farmer by the name of 
Matthews wanted to be elected colonel. As 



TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS 79 

Crockett had been a soldier in the Creek War, and 
was now a squire, with influence and popularity, 
Matthews asked him to run for the office of 
major, thinking that by getting Squire Crockett on 
his ticket he would stand a better chance of being 
made colonel. 

To win favor, Matthews invited everybody to a 
corn-husking and a froHc on his farm. Crockett 
and his family were among those who attended. 
During the day one of Crockett's friends told him 
that Mr. Matthews's son was also going to be a 
candidate for the office of major. This provoked 
the quick-tempered Davy, who immediately sought 
out Matthews and asked him about it. 

Matthews said that the report was true, and that 
his son was very sorry to run against such a man as 
Crockett. Davy at once saw the trick and told 
Matthews that his son need not be distressed, 
that he would not run against him, but he would 
run against his daddy for colonel ! 

After the husking was finished, and before the 
frolic began, Matthews mounted a stump and made 
a speech, telling the people he was a candidate for 
the colonelcy of the regiment, and asking their 
support. When he had finished, a queer thing 
happened. Squire Crockett took the stump and, 
in a speech brimful of good humor that kept every 



So DAVY CROCKETT 

one in a roar of laughter, he told the people he 
didn't propose to run for major, but would run 
for colonel against Matthews; and he told them 
why. Matthews had asked him to run for major, 
but since coming to the "bee" he had been told 
that that gentleman's son was going to run 
against him. In doing this, he said, Matthews 
had played a trick on him. He didn't therefore 
propose to run against the son; for if he had the 
whole family to run against, he would "levy on 
the head of the mess," and would run against 
the father, who, he declared, was totally unfit for 
the office. 

In the election which followed Crockett won 
the title of colonel, while the Matthews, senior and 
junior, were both defeated. 

Following this, in 182 1, Crockett ran for a seat 
in the State Legislature to represent Lawrence and 
Hickman counties; but before he began his elec- 
tioneering he took a drove of horses from Ten- 
nessee to North Carolina, which meant an absence 
of three months. When he started in on his elec- 
tion campaign, he felt, as he said, that it was "bran- 
fire new business" for him. He knew nothing 
about law or lawmaking. He had never paid any 
attention to politics. He had never read a news- 
paper. As for making a political speech, he could 



A 




..u 



|l I hi 







Faneuil Hall. "The Cradle oe Liberty." 
" God grant that the liberty-tree bough on which this cradle rocks may never 
break." — Dav^ Crockett. (See page 136.) 



TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS 8i 

just as easily have talked Latin. But here is where 
his ready wit came in. 

There was a big squirrel hunt to come off in the 
Duck River country. The entire company was to 
divide mto two parties equal in number and hunt 
for two days. The pelts were then to be brought 
in, and a ''tip-top country frolic" and barbecue 
was to be held at the expense of the side that 
brought m the smaller amount of game. 

Crockett's side won, he himself having great 
luck. Then the feast was held and a demand was 
made for a speech from the candidate. Now Davy 
had never made a real speech in all his life, and he 
knew nothing about the questions of the day. His 
opponent, who was a good talker, was there and 
urged him to speak, thinking this a good way to 
show the people how httle Davy knew. 

So the backwoods scout and hunter, feeling, 
as he said, as if his mouth was ''cramm'd full of 
mush," tried to talk. He told them they knew what 
he was there for, to get their votes, and that if 
they didn't watch mighty close, he'd get them, too ! 
He confessed that he didn't know anything to tell 
them about government. Then he launched out 
into a lot of anecdotes that set every one laughing, 
after which he jumped to the ground, saying he was 
''as dry as a powder-horn" and started for the bar, 



52 DAVY CROCKETT 

followed by the bigger part of the company ; and 
there he kept them amused by his rough wit until 
his opponent had finished speaking to the few 
that remained to hear him. 

A few days later came the opening of the county 
court at the county seat. This day, in country 
districts, especially in early times, was one of the 
great days of the year. Every one of any con- 
sequence in the county came to town dressed in his 
best; and if there was electioneering to be done, 
all the candidates were on hand to show them- 
selves and make friends and votes. 

On this occasion the candidates for governor, 
for member of congress, and for the state legis- 
lature were to be present. Davy knew he would 
have to speak, and in the presence of some real 
orators and statesmen. He says the thought 
made his knees mighty weak, and set his heart 
fluttering almost as bad as in his first love affair 
with the Quaker's niece. He listened attentively 
to what all the speakers said and learned a great 
deal, but what he himself should say when his turn 
came he didn't know. As luck would have it, the 
principal speakers took up almost all the time, and 
when it came Davy's turn, at the close of the day, 
every one was tired out with the speech-making 
and ready for a few of his side-splitting anecdotes. 



TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS 83 

When Davy finished, as he did in a very few minutes, 
he felt, as he said, he ''was safe in those parts." 

When the votes were counted, Crockett was 
elected, receiving twice as many votes as did his 
opponent, and nine votes over. 

Colonel Polk, afterwards President of the United 
States, was elected to this same legislature. Crock- 
ett relates the following as happening when he 
first met Polk. Mr. Polk said to him, '''-Well, 
Colonel, I suppose we shall have a radical change of 
the judiciary at the next session of the legislature ! ' 
'Very likely, sir,' said I, and I put out quicker, for 
I was afraid some one would ask me what the 
judiciary was ; and if I knowed, I wish I may be 
shot." 

Colonel Crockett had just taken his seat in the 
legislature when a piece of bad fortune befell him. 
He had put three thousand dollars, more than he 
was really worth, into a grist-mill, a powder-mill, 
and a distillery, and news came from home that a 
flood had swept it "to smash." 

Here is where his good, honest wife proved a 
blessing, for just when Crockett was feeling, to use 
his own words, that misfortune had made "a com- 
plete mash" of him, his wife bravely came to the 
rescue. "Just pay up, as long as you have a bit's 
worth in the world," she said, "and then everybody 



84 DAVY CROCKETT 

will be satisfied and we will scuffle for more.'* 
Davy took her advice and determined to keep a 
good conscience with an empty purse, rather than 
to get a bad opinion of himself with a full one. He 
gave up all he had and took a new start. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Perils of a Pioneer 

One would think that when a man was as 
popular in his section of the country as Crockett 
was at this time, he would not desire to pull up 
stakes and find a new home among strangers. 
But that is just what this eccentric man did. 
Hardly had he returned home after the session of 
the legislature when, with his eight-year-old son 
and a young man, Abram Henry, he started for 
the West to find a new home. They traveled 
nearly one hundred and fifty miles, through an 
almost pathless wilderness, to a point on one of 
the branches of the Obion River in the far western 
part of Tennessee, not far from where that river 
flows into the great Mississippi. Here, on a spot 
seven miles from his nearest neighbor, and fifteen 
miles from the next nearest, Crockett found ''el- 
bow room," and decided to build a cabin. It 
was a wild country, aboimding in all kinds of game. 
This made a strong appeal to the man who was 
known as the greatest bear-hunter in Tennessee. 

8s 



86 DAVY CROCKETT 

One day Crockett decided to visit his nearest 
neighbor, a Mr. Owens, who Hved seven miles 
farther up the Obion; so, hobbhng his horse to 
prevent its straying away, he started on the 
journey with his Httle son and young Henry. 

Proceeding along the course of the river until 
nearly opposite Mr. Owens' cabin, he determined 
to cross the stream. 

The river at its normal stage was only about 
forty feet wide, but there had been a freshet, and 
its waters now spread out over the country for 
nearly a mile. To cross the stream meant to wade 
or swim through ice-cold water of unknown depth. 
The bed of the stream itself was a swift and turbu- 
lent current. 

i" There is nothing to show that Crockett was 
compelled to make this journey, and prudence 
would have suggested that he return home and 
await a better season, particularly as to attempt a 
crossing was to expose to danger an eight-year-old 
boy ; but Crockett appears to have courted danger. 
He loved to overcome difficulties. His motto was 
"Go ahead," so in he plunged. For nearly a half 
hour the three waded, Crockett going ahead with 
a pole to test the depth and so keep out of holes. 
At times it was so deep that the small boy had to 
swim. Reaching the submerged banks of the river, 



PERILS OF A PIONEER 87 

they found a rapid, swirling current of unknown 
depth. On the other side a large tree had fallen 
into the stream, and its branches reached quite 
halfway across. Quickly Crockett solved the 
difficulty of his position. With his hatchet he cut 
down a large sapling in such a way that it fell 
across the stream, its top branches intermingling 
with those of the one that reached toward them 
from the other side. Supported by these trees, 
the three pulled their way across. But there was 
another half mile of wading through the icy water 
before they reached dry land. When they at 
last stood on terra firma, the little boy was shaking 
as if with the ague, and the father then, as he re- 
lates, ''felt mighty sorry." 

At Mr. Owens' cabin they found a warm welcome, 
and the little boy found a kind woman to dry his 
clothes and mother him. 

A boat loaded with sugar, coffee, flour, and other 
supplies had come up the Obion from the Missis- 
sippi, bound for a landing about one hundred miles 
farther on. It was the first boat to go so far up 
the Obion. The boatmen had stopped for a little 
time at Mr. Owens' home and were now making 
ready to resume their journey. 

The party was not long in becoming acquainted, 
and Crockett relates that, in the cabin of the boat, 



S8 DAVY CROCKETT 

they that night had a boisterous time which lasted 
till morning. 

All the men of the party became fast friends, 
and Crockett agreed, in exchange for a supply 
of eatables and drinkables, to help take the boat 
the remainder of the way. The next morning the 
party started with the boat, but it was only a 
start, as they found the stream full of fallen trees 
that had been blown down by a great wind a 
short time before, and almost impassable. So they 
decided to wait till the water should rise and carry 
off the obstructions. In the meantime all went 
back with Crockett and helped him build his 
cabin. 

Later, Crockett made the trip with the boat- 
men as agreed, enlivening the journey by several 
little hunting expeditions, — since the boat pro- 
ceeded very slowly up the winding river, — bring- 
ing in several fine deer. The trip made, he 
returned to his cabin with a young man of the 
party by the name of Harris, who wanted to 
live with him. Then the four set to work clear- 
ing a little ground and planting com, for it was 
late in the spring. While the crop grew the 
men and boys hunted. They killed ten grizzly 
bears that spring, besides innumerable deer, tur- 
keys, partridges, and other small game, so the 



PERILS OF A PIONEER 89 

little party fared bountifully; for they had meal 
for bread, besides sugar, wild fruits, nuts, and 
fish. 

After an absence of four or five months, Crockett 
decided to bring his family to the new home, but 
on his return he found he was called to attend an 
extra session of the legislature. We may be pretty 
sure that ''the member from the canebrakes," as 
he was called, fretted at being kept away, even for 
a few weeks, from the wild hfe of his wilderness 
home. 

It was late in October when Crockett finally 
reached his new home on the Obion with his horses, 
his dogs, his few household goods, his wife, and 
their Httle ones. They all had walked the one 
hundred and fifty miles, single file, over the long 
trail, for at the time there was not a highway in all 
that region. 

As Christmas drew near Crockett found his sup- 
ply of powder growing small. He feared he would 
have none with which to ''fire Christmas guns." 
In everything else he was rich. His bin was full of 
corn, and a day's hunt would supply juicy venison 
for weeks. Skins of bear and deer made warm 
clothing. Indeed, in all these things he was a 
"lord of creation." 

But for a hunter to be without powder was to be 



90 DAVY CROCKETT 

poor indeed. He had powder, a whole keg of it, 
brought to him by his brother-in-law who had 
moved west and built a cabin on the banks of one 
of the forks of the Obion, distant from his own 
cabin only six miles. But the keg of powder had 
not been delivered to him and he decided to go 
after it. The weather was bitterly cold, the chan- 
nel of the Obion had overflowed until the waters 
covered the lo'w lands, and of course there was no 
bridge across the stream itself, which was a raging 
flood. Yet the dauntless hunter, against the 
pleadings of his wife, determined to make the trip 
or die in the attempt. Tying up a little bundle of 
clothes that he could put on when he should reach 
dry land, he slung it upon his back, together with 
his hunting tools, and off he went. We will let 
Davy tell the story in his own words : — 

"il didn't before know how much anybody could 
suffer and not die. This, and some of my other 
experiments in water, learned me something about 
it, and I therefore relate them. 

^'The snow was about four inches deep when I 
started, and when I got to the water, which was 
only about a quarter of a mile off, it looked like an 
ocean. I put in, and wa'ded on till I came to the 
channel, where I crossed that on a high log. I 
then took water again, having my gun and all my 



PERILS OF A PIONEER 91 

hunting tools along, and waded till I came to a 
deep slough that was wider than the river itself. I 
had crossed it often on a log; but behold, when I 
got there, no log was to be seen. I know'd of an 
island in the slough, and a sapling stood on it close 
to the side of that log, which was now entirely 
under water. I knowed further, that the water 
was about eight or ten feet deep under the log, and 
I judged it to be about three feet deep over it. 
After studying a little what I should do, I deter- 
mined to cut a forked sapling, which stood near 
me, so as to lodge it against the one that stood on 
the island, in which I succeeded very well. I then 
cut me a pole, and then crawled along on my sap- 
ling till I got to the one it was lodged against, which 
was about six feet above the water. I then felt 
about with my pole till I found the log, which was 
just about as deep under the water as I had judged. 
I then crawled back and got my gun, which I had 
left at the stump of the sapling I had cut, and again 
made my way to the place of lodgment, and then 
climbed down the other sapling so as to get on the 
log. I then felt my way along with my feet, in 
the water, about waist deep, but it was a mighty 
ticklish business. However, I got over, and by 
this time I had very little feeling in my feet and 
legs, as I had been all the time in the water, except 



92 DAVY CROCKETT 

what time I was crossing the high log over the 
river, and cKmbing my lodged sapling. 

''I went but a short distance before I came to 
another slough, over which there was a log, but it 
was floating on the water. I thought I could walk 
it, and so I mounted on it; but when I had got 
about the middle of the deep water, somehow or 
somehow else, it turned over, and in I went up to 
my head. I waded out of this deep water, and went 
ahead till I came to the high land, where I stopp'd 
to pull off my wet clothes, and put on the others, 
which I had held up with my gun, above the water, 
when I fell in. I got them on, but my flesh had 
no feeling in it, I was so cold. I tied up the wet 
ones, and hung them up in a bush. I now thought 
I would run, so as to warm myself a little, but I 
couldn't raise a trot for some time; indeed, I 
couldn't step more than half the length of my foot. 
After a while I got better, and went on five miles 
to the house of my brother-in-law, having not even 
smelt fire from the time I started. I got there late 
in the evening, and he was much astonished at 
seeing me at such a time. I stayed all night, and 
the next morning was most piercing cold, and so 
they persuaded me not to go home that day. I 
agreed, and turned out and killed him two deer; 
but the weather still got worse and colder, instead 



PERILS OF A PIONEER 93 

of better. I staid that night, and in the morning 
they still insisted I couldn't get home. I knowed 
the water would be frozen over, but not hard 
enough to bear me, and so I agreed to stay that 
day. I went out hunting again, and pursued a 
big he-bear all day, but didn't kill him. The next 
morning was bitter cold, but I knowed my family 
was without meat, and I determined to get home to 
them, or die a-trying. 

^'I took my keg of powder, and all my hunting 
tools, and cut out. When I got to the water, it 
was a sheet of ice as far as I could see. I put on 
to it but hadn't got far before it broke through 
with me; and so I took out my tomahawk, and 
broke my way along before me for a considerable 
distance. At last I got to where the ice would bear 
me for a short distance, and I mounted on it, and 
went ahead ; but it soon broke in again, and I had 
to wade on till I came to my floating log. I found 
it so tight this time, that I know'd it couldn't give 
me another fall, as it was frozen in with the ice. I 
crossed over it without much difficulty, and worked 
along till I got to my lodged sapling and my log 
under the water. The swiftness of the current 
prevented the water from freezing over it, and so I 
had to wade, just as I did when I crossed it before. 
When I got to my sapling, I left my gun, and 



94 DAVY CROCKETT 

climbed out with my powder keg first, and then 
went back and got my gun. By this time I was 
nearly frozen to death, but I saw all along before 
me, where the ice had been fresh broke, and I 
thought it must be a bear straggling about in the 
water. I, therefore, fresh primed my gun, and 
cold as I was, I was determined to make war on 
him, if we met. But I followed the trail till it led 
me home, and I then found it had been made by 
my young man that lived with me, who had been 
sent by my distressed wife to see, if he could, what 
had become of me, for they all believed that I was 
dead. When I got home, I wasn't quite dead, but 
mighty nigh it ; but I had my powder, and that 
was what I went for." 

The next day Crockett killed the biggest bear he 
had ever seen up to that time. The day was bit- 
terly cold. The rain of the night before had turned 
to sleet which, driven by a fierce wind, almost 
pierced the skin. But the household was out of 
meat, and this was deemed sufficient excuse for 
leaving the cozy warmth of the cabin for the biting 
gale. 

Taking his three dogs, one of them an old hound 
of many hunts, his gun, and a good supply of am- 
munition, he set forth. For twelve miles he pushed 
through the storm without reward, save as two wild 



PERILS OF A PIONEER 95 

turkeys fell before his unerring aim, when sud- 
denly the wild barking of the dogs, now well in 
advance, told him they had sighted something 
worth while. Pushing ahead with all his strength, 
he soon came within sight of the dogs, who appeared 
to be barking at something up a tree, but on seeing 
him they plunged away again only to stop farther 
on and repeat the performance. This annoyed 
Crockett not a little, and his annoyance became a 
rage when, coming up again to where the dogs saw 
him, they again bounded away. Three or four 
times this happened. The hunter decided that the 
old hound was playing him a trick, and he vowed 
that as soon as he got in sight of him again he would 
shoot him. 

Just then he reached the edge of a little clearing 
and the sight that met his eyes stirred every fiber 
of his being. There, just ahead, was the biggest 
black bear he had ever seen, engaged in a running 
fight with the faithful dogs who all along had seen 
the retreatmg monster, but with wonderful sagac- 
ity had hesitated to attack it until their master 
should be near enough to aid them in case of 
necessity. 

Now, harassed by its enemies, the bear was 
hindered in its flight, so that the hunter could 
come up within rifle range; and to this end the 



96 DAVY CROCKETT 

dogs, with almost human sagacity, had been 
working. 

Finally, plunging into the forest, the closely 
pursued animal took refuge in the crotch of a tree, 
where he sat and calmly eyed his tormentors. 
Taking deliberate aim from a distance of eighty 
yards, Crockett sent a bullet straight into the 
monster's breast. Only the convulsive movement 
of a paw showed that the lead had struck. Again 
the rifle spoke, and almost at once the shaggy 
creature tumbled headlong to the ground among 
the three now frenzied dogs. 

Davy did not dare to shoot again for fear of 
hitting one of his faithful animals. With his big 
hunting knife poised for the blow, he rushed in to 
finish the job ; but the bear was still master, for, 
shaking himself loose from the dogs, he lunged 
forward to attack the hunter. 

Davy was not desirous of trying a wrestling 
match with a six-hundred-pound bear, so, turning, 
he ran back for his rifle, which he had thrown down 
when he sprang forward to use his knife; then, 
taking quick aim, he sent a bullet direct into the 
beast's brain. 

It has always been a matter of pride with the 
best of hunters to kill a bear. What, then, must 
have been Crockett's feelings as he stood, with his 



PERILS OF A PIONEER 97 

panting, bruised, and bleeding dogs, above this, the 
biggest prize of his hunting career up to that time. 
He tells us that only once after that did he kill 
a larger bear, one that outweighed this one by 
seventeen pounds. 

Crockett was twelve miles from home and the 
day was far spent. He could not carry so great a 
burden with him, and to leave it for the night was 
to furnish a feast for wolves; so he walked the 
long distance to his home, no doubt with a light 
heart and a buoyant step, despite the long tramp 
of the morning, blazing the trees as he went, so 
that he might find his way back again to his bear. 

On reaching home he summoned his brother-in- 
law, who was living near, and young Harris, and 
with four pack horses returned at once to the 
scene of the killing. By the light of a big camp 
fire they butchered the bear, and, packing hide 
and meat on the horses, late in the night they 
made their way home. 

By the following February Crockett had accumu- 
lated so many skins that he made a trip to Jackson, 
a settlement forty miles away, to dispose of them. 
His eldest son accompanied him. Here, after he 
had made his sale, and bought some coffee, sugar, 
salt, powder, and lead, he formed the acquaintance 
of three men who were rival candidates for the 



98 DAVY CROCKETT 

legislature. In their talk together one of them 
jokingly proposed that Crockett also stand as a 
candidate. Crockett replied that this was out of 
the question, as he now lived forty miles away 
from any settlement and was a stranger in that 
part of the country. 

One of the men who was talking with him was 
a certain Dr. Butler, a nephew of Andrew Jackson, 
who was then one of the most prominent public 
men in America. 

One day, after Crockett's return home, a traveler 
stopped at his cabin door and told him he had 
been named as a candidate for the legislature, 
and, drawing forth a newspaper, showed Davy 
the big headlines that announced the fact. The 
newspaper article sounded to Davy as if some one 
was playing a joke on him. This so stirred his 
fighting blood that he hired a young man of the 
neighborhood to plant his crops, and then Davy 
started out to make somebody pay for his fun. 

Two of the candidates referred to finally with- 
drew in favor of Dr. Butler. The doctor thought 
he would win easily on the strength of his connec- 
tion with the great Jackson, as well as on his own 
merits, but when the votes were counted, Crockett 
came in ahead by two hundred and forty-seven 
votes. 



PERILS OF A PIONEER 99 

This election plainly showed Crockett's popular- 
ity as a man, for he won it without the advantage 
of education, influence, or money. 

At the end of Crockett's term in the legislature 
he was reelected with Httle opposition. 

At this time General Jackson became a candidate 
for the United States Senate from the state of 
Tennessee, and the legislature of the state elected 
him. There were twenty-five votes against him 
and one of the twenty-five was Crockett's. We 
wonder if Davy did not remember the day at 
Fort Strothers when General Jackson ordered the 
regulars to aim their rifles at the volunteers who, 
after overstaying the time for which they had en- 
listed, had decided to go home ! By this vote 
Crockett showed that even the mighty name of 
Jackson did not frighten him. 



CHAPTER IX 
Davy as a Bear Hunter 

So popular had Crockett become, largely be- 
cause of his homely good humor, his skill as a hunter, 
his hard common sense, and his sterling honesty 
and independence, that he was urged to run for 
Congress. This was a little too much for ''the 
member from the canebrakes.'^ He knew Httle 
enough about Tennessee affairs, and nothing at all 
about national or ''Congress matters," as he called 
them. But he allowed himself to be persuaded. 
His party was opposed to the new tariff law, passed 
in 1824, and it wanted a popular man to run against 
Colonel Alexander, who was up for reelection and 
who was in favor of the tariff. 

Unfortunately for Dav>% the price of cotton 
just at that time went up to twenty-five dollars 
a hundred, and Colonel Alexander made the people 
beHeve it was on account of the tariff law which he 
had voted for, Crockett said, "The people know'd 
cotton had raised, sure enough, and if the colonel 
hadn't done it, they didn't know what had. I 



DAVY AS A BEAR HUNTER loi 

might as well have sung psalms over a dead horse 
as to try to make the people believe otherwise." 
When the ballots were coimted, Crockett lost by 
two votes. 

Perhaps the country did not lose much by Davy's 
defeat, for he was not much of a statesman. He 
was honest and sincere, but his knowledge and 
experience were not in the Hne of poHtics and 
statecraft, and further than to make himself 
liked as an eccentric backwoodsman, with a fund 
of humorous anecdote and a record as a hunter, 
he could not have done a great deal at Washington. 

During these years Crockett learned that there 
were some other things he could not do besides 
make a poKtical speech, for he tried lumbering 
and failed at it, as we shall see. 

About twenty-five miles from Crockett's cabin, 
on the banks of the river that here widened out 
into what he called a lake, grew a vast number of 
fine white-oak trees. 

Thinking he could make money in the stave 
business, Crockett went over to the lake and, 
hiring some choppers, went to work cutting down 
the trees, sawing the trunks and large Hmbs into 
short logs, and splitting these into staves. These 
staves he planned to load upon rude flatboats, 
which his men were to construct, and take down the 



I02 DAVY CROCKETT 

Mississippi to New Orleans, where barrel-makers 
would buy them at a good price. This was in the 
fall of 1825. 

While his men were thus engaged, Crockett 
spent much of his time roaming through the forests, 
often accompanied by his eldest son who had al- 
ready become an expert hunter. The country 
proved to be full of bears, and Crockett could not 
resist the call to a bear hunt. 

There were three months of the winter when he 
could not hunt, for in these three months the 
bears, having grown fat on fruits and nuts, crawl 
into hollow logs or trees, or into the dense cane- 
brakes to sleep. Their winter naps last from about 
January first to the last of April. When they come 
out in the spring, they are ravenous. It is a bad 
time then to meet Sir Bruin. 

Davy's stories of his exploits at this time are 
scarcely beHevable. For instance, he tells us that 
in one week he killed seventeen large bears; that 
during the fall and winter he brought down fifty- 
eight, and in one month of the following spring, 
forty-seven — a total of one hundred and five 
bears in eight or nine months ! 

At one time he and a friend, with eight trained 
dogs as fierce as panthers, killed a bear a day for 
fourteen successive days. Surely his reputation as 



DAVY AS A BEAR HUNTER 103 

a bear hunter was well deserved. That it was not 
every hunter who could do so well is shown by the 
fact that the people about him, most of them skilled 
hunters, marveled at his prowess and held him to 
be the greatest of them all. Some of Crockett's 
adventures at this time must be related. 

Just after Christmas, while working with his men 
cutting staves, he felt he could stand it no longer 
and must go for a hunt, since in a few days the 
bears, fattened for their winter sleep, would have 
disappeared. So, calling his dogs and shouldering 
his gun, he started out, taking his httle son with 
him. The very first evening he killed three bears. 
Driving four forked sticks into the ground for 
supports, he constructed a platform several feet 
from the ground on which he placed the bear 
meat after salting it, so that it should be out of 
the reach of wolves. The next morning early 
some hunters came into camp with fourteen dogs 
"so thin and weak that when they barked they 
almost had to lean up against a tree and take a 
rest." Davy told the hunters to stay and let the 
dogs feed on the remains of the bears he had just 
cut up, and he and his boy pushed on. Soon his dogs 
stirred up a big bear that ran plump into the camp 
he had just left, where he was shot by the hunters 
who were still there. A little later, in going 



I04 DAVY CROCKETT 

through a canebrake, his dogs divided into two 
companies, and both were soon raising such a fuss 
that their master knew there were two fights 
under way. He at once set out for one, and his 
Httle son for the other. Davy found five of his 
dogs on top of a two-year-old bear, and he was not 
long in dispatching him with his knife. Just then 
the boy's rifle cracked and, hurrying in the direc- 
tion from which the sound came, he found the 
boy with his two dogs standing over their dead 
bear. Still another dog now announced, by 
ferocious cries, that he had another prize, and when 
Crockett rushed up, he found this one dog alone 
had treed the largest bear of the three. It took 
but one shot of Crockett's rifle to bring him down, 
and thus in one half hour the father and son had 
killed three bears. 

After butchering their prey, and while preparing 
a camp for the night, they heard again the cry of 
the dogs and at once started in pursuit, but after 
following for some time they turned and retraced 
their steps. On the way they met a miserable- 
looking fellow who was trying to find something to 
eat for his hungry family. He lived in a tumble- 
down cabin not far away. Davy at once suggested 
that if he would go with them and help salt and 
scaffold their meat, he would give him all the meat 



DAVY AS A BEAR HUNTER 105 

he would need for a long time to come. The fellow 
had never seen a bear killed, and when Davy told 
him he had killed six within twenty-four hours, he 
was eager to accept the hunter's proposal. 

Night had now come on and the dogs had not 
returned. Crockett says of them: ''I afterwards 
found they had treed the bear about five miles off, 
near to a man's house, and had barked at it the 
whole enduring night. Poor fellows! Many a 
time they looked for me, and wondered why I 
didn't come, for they know'd there was no mistake 
in me, and I know'd they were as good as ever 
fluttered. In the morning, as soon as it was light 
enough to see, the man took his gun and went to 
them, and shot the bear and killed it. My dogs, 
however, wouldn't have anything to say to this 
stranger, so they left him, and came early in the 
morning back to me." 

The next day four big fat fellows were killed, and 
before the week was out, the total number to their 
credit was seventeen. To the poor fellow he had 
picked up and invited to go with them, Crockett 
gave a thousand pounds of bear meat, enough to 
last his family a year. 

Hardly had Crockett returned from this hunt 
before a neighbor who stood in need of meat 
invited him to go on another hunt. Davy could 



io6 DAVY CROCKETT 

not resist, though he felt it was too close to the 
time when the bears were wont to go into hiding, 
and he had men working for him in the woods, 
cutting staves and building boats. 

The second day out on this hunt they killed a 
bear that had gone into winter quarters in a dense 
thicket of cane. The dogs had scented him, but 
they were afraid to go into the cane house the 
bear had made until their master had come up. 
With him back of them they would, as Davy says, 
*' seize the old serpent himself with all his horns and 
heads and cloven foot and ugliness into the bar- 
gain." So when Crockett encouraged them, they 
plunged in and the next instant the bear was out 
among them. Crockett's friend was anxious to 
kill a bear and he gave him the chance. One shot 
laid him low. 

The next day they hunted in a region where a 
hurricane had strewn the ground with fallen timber, 
making a fine place for bears. In riding along on 
a high ridge Crockett saw on the bark of a standing 
black-oak the claw marks of a bear. The character 
of the marks showed that the animal had climbed 
the tree and had not come down, as there were no 
long scratches on the bark, and these are always 
found after a bear has come down a tree. 

Dismounting from their horses, the hunters pre- 



DAVY AS A BEAR HUNTER 107 

pared to do a little reconnoitering, as they say in 
the army. Seeing a sapling at a short distance, 
Crockett started to chop it down with his toma- 
hawk so as to make it fall against the one with the 
bear in it. This was to enable his little son to 
climb up, for he could cHmb Hke a squirrel, and look 
down into the hole where the bear had probably 
gone for his winter nap. But before the job was 
finished, a great barking of the dogs drew their 
attention in another direction. 

Leaving the boy to chop down the tree, the two 
men went on, to find the dogs had treed a fat bear 
which at one shot came tumbling down like a log. 
Then in the distance came the cry of the same dog 
that in the previous story had alone treed one of 
the three bears killed in an afternoon; and, on 
following this up, they found he had another one 
treed. When this one was brought down, the two 
men returned to the tree in which the first bear had 
taken refuge, to find the boy had chopped down the 
sapling, but that it had not fallen as intended. 

Crockett then retired to some distance with his 
dogs, so that the falling tree should not hit them, 
and waited. The others chopped at the tree con- 
taining the bear. It proved to be hollow. In a 
few moments Davy called to the others to look up, 
and, as they did so, the bear poked his head out of 



io8 DAVY CROCKETT 

the hole and looked down at them, and the next 
moment his bearship was clambering down the 
trunk! Crockett's friend fired, and the beast 
tumbled into the midst of the dogs. A rough-and- 
tumble fight ensued, during which they all rolled 
to the bottom of the ridge on which the tree had 
stood. Crockett followed, and, taking careful aim 
lest he injure a dog, he killed the animal, thus 
adding a third to the number for the day. 

The following day Crockett left his companion, 
to follow the cries of his dogs. For three miles 
or more he pushed along, over and under fallen 
timber, through thickets of cane and tangled 
vines. His progress was slow, as the ground was 
rough and hilly, and frequently he had to go some 
distance to the right or left to get around cracks 
in the ground made by the great earthquake that 
visited this region in 1812. By the time he had 
come up with the dogs it was so dark he could see 
the bear they had been following only as a dark 
mass in the fork of a poplar tree. 

There was no dry brush to set afire and make a 
light with, so he fired his rifle at a guess. The 
bear, instead of coming down, walked farther out 
on a limb, which gave Davy a better view of him. 
Even after a second shot the bear remained per- 
fectly still, but while his persecutor was loading for 



DAVY AS A BEAR HUNTER 109 

a third shot, the big fellow came scrambling down 
into the midst of the yelping dogs. Then occurred 
a fierce fight at the hunter's very feet, part of the 
time almost within his reach, as he stood with his 
big knife in hand, ready to defend himself if the 
creature attacked him. So dark was it that he 
could not distinguish bear from dogs. Finally the 
bear got down into a crack in the earth some four 
feet deep. Davy says he could only tell which was 
"the biting end of him" by the "hollering" of 
his dogs. FeeHng about with the muzzle of his 
gun till he thought it was against a vital part of 
the animal, he fired, but the bullet struck only the 
fleshy part of a foreleg. This forced the bear out 
of his retreat and another stiff fight followed, 
ending, as before, in the bear taking refuge in the 
crack. 

On feeling about for his gun, which he had laid 
down a moment before, the hunter's hand touched 
a long, heavy pole, and the thought occurred to 
him to try punching him out. But with all the 
punching, and the dogs jumping in on him, the 
creature remained where he was. 

Now Crockett decided on a dangerous expedient. 
Sending his dogs at the animal's head, he crept 
into the hole and, feeling his way carefully till 
he touched the animal's rump, he made a fierce 



no DAVY CROCKETT 

thrust with his long knife just back of where he 
thought the shoulder should be and, as luck would 
have it, the knife pierced the heart. 

But the story is not yet ended. The hunter had 
waded an icy creek in following his dogs. The 
excitement of the struggle with the bear had made 
him forget his discomfort. But now leggins and 
moccasins were stiff with ice and he was numb 
with cold. Nothing could be found dry enough to 
burn. He dared not lie down for fear he would 
go to sleep and freeze to death. He could not 
walk, as his legs were numb and it was pitch dark. 
He tried jumping about, rolling on the ground, 
shouting, and beating his body to restore circula- 
tion, but to Httle purpose. Within reach was a 
tall tree, about two feet in diameter and thirty 
feet to the first Hmb. Wrapping his arms and legs 
about it, he hunched himself up, slowly and pain- 
fully at first, until he reached the limb ; and then, 
still hugging the trunk, he let himself sHde down. 
This, to his joy, brought returning Ufe. Repeating 
the performance again and again, he found it made 
him warm, so he kept it up at intervals all night 
and thus saved his Hfe. Davy says he does not 
know how often he cHmbed that tree, but it seemed 
to him ''like a hundred times." 

The next day when they returned to get the 



DAVY AS A BEAR HUNTER 



III 



bear, and Davy's neighbor heard the story of the 
faght, and saw the crack in the ground and the 
marks of the struggle, he said he wouldn't have 
gone into that hole for all the bears in the woods 
The party of three having now killed ten bears, 
which made as much meat as their five horses 
could carry started for home, thirty miles away. 
The fall and winter's hunting was now over, with 
fifty-eight bears to Crockett's credit. 

All thistime Crockett's hired men were working 
on the Obion River, getting out staves and building 
two rude flatboats. His big business undertaking 
had been allowed to run itself while he was miles 
away m the forest shooting bears. 



CHAPTER X 

Boatman and Congressman 

Early in the spring, with thirty thousand 
staves loaded in the two flatboats, Crockett 
and a small crew of woodsmen pushed out from 
shore and made their way into the current of the 
Mississippi. There does not appear to have been 
an experienced riverman among them, as Davy 
discovered as soon as they were afloat on the great 
stream. The man hired as pilot knew as little 
about the job as his employer did, and the result 
was a general scare, Crockett being perhaps the 
most scared man of the lot. 

The boats were of the rudest construction, being 
mere flatboats of hewn timbers, with a deck over 
a small part, roofing a cabin where the crew were 
to eat and sleep. A heavy rudder at the stem, 
worked by hand or shoulder, was supposed to 
guide the craft. 

As soon as the two heavily laden boats reached 
the main current of the Mississippi, they showed a 
tendency to take matters into their own hands. 



BOATMAN AND CONGRESSMAN 113 

so the crews lashed them together. This did not 
improve matters. The men were unable to control 
the clumsy craft, and, as helpless as toy boats above 
a Niagara, their huge hulks swung around, now side- 
wise, now at an angle with the current, but seldom 
bow on. 

Crockett, frightened as he never had been on 
land, directed that the boats be headed to the 
shore, but after repeated attempts this had to be 
given up. The stream was full of snags and ob- 
structions, shifting sandbars, little islands, and 
sharp turns, on any one of which at any moment 
they were Hable to come to grief. They could not 
tie up for the night, for they could not stop, so 
there was no sleep and no respite from anxiety. 

Crockett, with most of his clothes off, was 
sitting at night in the cabin, ruminating on his 
bad luck, and thinking how much better bear 
hunting was than floating on the water, when he 
heard the sound of hurried footsteps on the deck 
above him. Going to the hatchway, he was met 
by a flood of water, and at the same moment the 
boat lurched. He knew that the end had come, 
and for a moment he beheved himself penned in 
like a mouse in a trap. Then he thought of a 
small hole in the boat's side which the crew used 
when dipping up water. It was hardly large 



114 DAVY CROCKETT 

enough for a man's body, but it was his one way 
of escape and it was worth trying. Thrusting 
his head and arms through, he wriggled and 
squirmed to get out, but the more he struggled the 
tighter he became wedged. He could get hold of 
nothing to pull on or to push against. The water 
in the cabin was almost up to his neck. Calling 
to his men, they rushed to his aid. Clambering 
along the logs and driftwood under which the boat 
was being drawn by the current, they grasped him 
by the arms and shoulders and pulled with all 
their might. Davy commanded them to pull his 
arms off if necessary, as *4t was get out or sink." 

When at last he was rescued, he was found to 
be skinned ''Uke a rabbit," without a stitch to his 
back. The entire party, which had barely es- 
caped with their lives, sat, during the remainder 
of the night, on the raft of driftwood against 
which they had come to grief. Four of the com- 
pany were bareheaded and three barefooted. 
Every particle of their clothing was lost excepting 
what they happened to have on, which in Davy's 
case was little. The next day, haiHng a passing 
boat, they were taken on board and landed at 
Memphis. Here Crockett met one of his comrades 
in the Creek War who supplied him with clothing 
and money, of which he and his men stood sadly in 



BOATMAN AND CONGRESSMAN 115 

need. This friend refused to take Crockett's note 
for the loan, and depended solely on his verbal 
promise to pay back the money. We may be 
quite sure that the man lost nothing by his gener- 
osity. 

Crockett now tried to find the ill-fated boats. 
The larger one had been seen about fifty miles 
down the river. Men had tried to land it, but it 
was as obstinate as ever. The search proved 
futile, and thus ended the career of our hero as a 
lumberman. 

Crockett, it appears, never forgot Colonel 
Alexander's beating him for Congress by two 
votes, and secretly nourished the ambition to some 
day get even with the Colonel by beating him at 
the polls. 

Soon after Crockett's return from his unhappy 
experience on the Mississippi, it again came time 
to choose a Congressman in Crockett's district. 
Colonel Alexander was once more a candidate, and 
against him was pitted William Arnold, a major 
general of the miHtia and a brilliant lawyer. 
-Crockett's chance of beating two such big men 
seemed very small, for he had once before been 
beaten, and since his loss in the lumber venture, 
he hadn't a dollar to his name. It took money 
then, as it does now, to run for office. 



Ii6 DAVY CROCKETT 

One thing favored the bear hunter. When 
Colonel Alexander beat him two years before, 
cotton was twenty-five cents a pound, and Colonel 
Alexander had made the people believe that the 
tariff law he had voted for was the cause of this 
high figure; but now the price was down almost 
to six cents, and he couldn't use that argument 
any more. 

So Crockett made up his mind to "go in and win." 
A friend and admirer lent him one hundred and 
fifty dollars, and that sum went a long way in those 
days. 

His electioneering was much Hke that in his 
former campaigns. During the three months it 
lasted he rode over the district, a large one em- 
bracing eleven counties; he attended fairs, shoot- 
ing matches, and hunting contests. Here he met 
the people, most of whom were like himself, poor 
and illiterate. They were the sort of people who 
would be much more impressed by the fine figure 
and face of the renowned hunter, clad in his home- 
spun and coonskin cap, than by the fine manners 
and eloquent tongues of the Congressman and the 
soldier-lawyer. 

Everywhere Davy went his fame as an Indian 
fighter and bear hunter went ahead of him, and 
when the people actually met him, and caught the 




From a painting in tin Capitol at Austin, Texas. 

Davy the Bear-hunter. 
" / /lave a/ways found that it is a very important thing for a man who 
is fairly goi7tg ahead, to know exactly how far to go, and when to stop." 
— Davy Crockett. 



BOATMAN AND CONGRESSMAN 117 

humor of his eye and the honest ring of his voice, 
and heard his quaint language and apt stories, 
they were irresistibly won over to him. 

Here is an incident of the campaign that illus- 
trates Crockett's quick wit. One day the three 
candidates were to appear on the same platform. 
Crockett had to speak first. He could not discuss 
great public questions intelligently, for he knew too 
Httle about them, so he spent his time in giving a 
homely talk, made up mostly of witty anecdotes; 
then, when he had everybody in a good humor, he 
quit. 

Colonel Alexander followed with a long-winded 
speech, defending his course in Congress, and never 
once referring to Crockett or what he had said. 
Last came General Arnold who, in lawyer-like 
phrase, proceeded to argue against the position of 
Colonel Alexander. Neither man paid the least 
attention to Crockett. This provoked ''the candi- 
date from the caneb rakes." 

Near the close of the General's talk a flock of 
guinea fowls passed close to the crowd and their 
cries annoyed the speaker, so he stopped while 
the birds were being driven away. When he 
finished his speech, Crockett arose, and, in tones so 
loud that all could hear, he said, addressing the 
General : — 



Ii8 DAVY CROCKETT 

''Well, General, you are the first man I ever 
saw that understood the language of fowls. You 
had not the politeness even to name me in your 
speech. But when my little friends, the guinea 
hens, came up and began to holler ' Crockett, 
Crockett, Crockett,' you were ungenerous enough 
to drive them all away." 

If you have heard the cry of the guinea hen, you 
will understand how this would raise a hearty 
laugh at the expense of the General, and how the 
effect of his speech must have been lost, for if 
there is any trait that is conspicuous in the native, 
untutored backwoodsman, it is the love of fair 
play. 

The story of Colonel Crockett's misfortune in 
the loss of his boats and lumber got abroad through- 
out the district, and won him the sympathy of 
many, particularly as he was not heard to complain 
of his misfortunes, but to keep right on doing his 
best as an honest man. 

Crockett took care not to side too strongly with 
either of the political parties. His ready wit 
enabled him to keep neutral, as it were, and not 
commit himself. Every one knew that he was 
independent and couldn't be bought, that he 
wouldn't ''wear any man's collar," and that, when 
he came to vote on any great question, he could be 



BOATMAN AND CONGRESSMAN 119 

depended on to vote as his conscience told him to 
and not as some party leaders dictated. 

The two great parties then were the Republican 
party, afterward known as the Democratic party, 
which followed General Jackson, and two years 
after this elected him President of the United 
States; and the Whig party, or the party of 
John Quincy Adams, then President, and of Henry 
Clay, which later, in 1856, under William Henry 
Harrison, came to be known as the Republican 
party. 

The Jackson party was the popular party in 
Tennessee, of course, because Jackson was a 
Tennesseean and born amid the privations and 
poverty of the West. The Adams party was the 
aristocratic party, and to that class of people 
most of the men of wealth and education belonged. 

General Jackson, the hero of the Creek War 
and of the battle of New Orleans, was the idol of 
the great masses of the people of Tennessee. No 
candidate could hope to succeed who opposed 
Jackson. Strangely enough, the fact that in the 
State Legislature Crockett had voted against 
Jackson for the Senate, does not appear to have 
endangered the chances of the bear hunter. Per- 
haps it was because he made it known that, while 
he had no love for Jackson, he was for him so long 



I20 DAVY CROCKETT 

as the great leader did the right thing; but he 
made it equally well known that no man, not even 
"Old Hickory," could lead him where he did not 
believe it right to go. 

When the votes were counted, Colonel Crockett 
was found to have won, with twenty-seven hundred 
and forty-eight votes to spare. So unexpected and 
so startling was his victory, it at once made him 
famous throughout the whole country. Every- 
where people were talking and reading of Davy 
Crockett, the Indian fighter and bear hunter, who, 
rude and illiterate as he was, was going to Wash- 
ington, to represent one hundred thousand people 
of his state, and to help make laws for the Great 
Republic. 



CHAPTER XI 

Crockett as Congressman 

The first question that confronted Crockett 
after he was chosen to go to Washington was — 
how was he ever to reach there ? Congress was to 
convene in December (1827) ; it was too far for 
him to go on foot or on horseback, and he had no 
money. The hundred and fifty dollars his kind 
friend had lent him had long since been spent 
in election expenses. He could not hope to earn 
the money in the few months before he must start, 
and he was already in debt. But the difficulty 
was bridged when this same good friend came 
forward with another hundred dollars, and Davy, 
in high spirits, set off for Washington on the reg- 
ular stage. On the way he met some old friends 
and made many new ones, and by his rolHcking 
good humor he made the long journey one of 
constant entertainment for all who came in contact 
with him. 

When he reached Washington, then a squalid, 
unkempt town of twenty thousand people, the 

121 



122 DAVY CROCKETT 

first thing Crockett did was to draw two hundred 
and fifty dollars of his pay and send it back to the 
good friend who had so generously come to his 
assistance. Speaking of this, Crockett says, "I 
sent this money with a mighty good will; for I 
reckon nobody in this world loves a friend better 
than me, or remembers a kindness longer." 

We will pass over our hero's two years in Con- 
gress, which covered the years 1828 and 1829, with 
only the observation that in Washington he won 
the same reputation for independence and out- 
spoken honesty that he had won in his state, and 
that everywhere he was sought out and talked 
about as a unique character. He was never ac- 
counted a statesman, but always a great hunter 
and fighter, with a marvelous command of back- 
woods repartee and an inexhaustible fund of good 
humor and jolly stories; but best of all, he was 
regarded as an honest man. 

The newspapers throughout the country bristled 
with his anecdotes and quaint sayings, while pic- 
tures of him and histories of his career were eagerly 
sought by all classes. The natural result was that 
many things were told and written of him that were 
either untrue or gross exaggerations. To such an 
extent was he thus held up to view as a buffoon, or 
a curiosity, that he had to take steps publicly to 



CROCKETT AS CONGRESSMAN 123 

deny things reported of him, since many of these 
stories found their way back to Tennessee and were 
circulated there to make his people ashamed of 
him. 

In 1829 Crockett went home to try for a second 
term in Congress, and this time his people sent him 
back to Washington with a majority greater than 
before. But in this second Congress he was to 
incur the enmity of the great Jackson, who had 
become our Chief Executive. 

President Jackson wanted Congress to pass a bill 
removing the Cherokees and other Indians from 
territory east of the Mississippi. Crockett dis- 
agreed with the President and his party and de- 
cided to vote against the bill. His friends urged 
him not to oppose Jackson. They pointed out how 
popular the President was throughout the country 
and especially in Tennessee, his home state, and 
how he had set his heart on carrying out this 
measure. They predicted that, if Crockett per- 
sisted, his home people would object, and that he 
would never again win their favor and support. 

Here Crockett showed that "Go ahead" was not 
merely his motto but the ruling principle of his 
life. He beUeved the President wrong, and said 
that, if he lost everything in voting against his 
chief, he still would vote as he thought right. 



124 DAVY CROCKETT 

The prophets were not mistaken. They fore- 
told the truth. When he came up for Congress 
the third time, in the summer of 1831, Crockett 
found that all the friends and supporters of Jack- 
son had turned against him ; and, what was more, 
the legislature had changed the boundaries of his 
district so as to include eighteen counties in all, 
some of which were depended on to defeat him. 

When the votes were counted, it was found that 
the result in seventeen of the counties was in his 
favor, but that Madison County had voted so 
heavily against him he was beaten in the total by 
seventy votes. 

In Madison County, amid the cottonwood 
swamps, lived the Murrell outlaws, a gang of 
river gamblers, horse thieves, escaped criminals, 
and cutthroats, the worst sort that ever blighted 
a country. They and their alHes worked, fought, 
and voted against honest Davy Crockett and 
accomplished his defeat. 

So Davy Crockett became a private citizen again. 
No doubt he felt disappointed, for he was becom- 
ing accustomed to public life ; but he could go to 
his corn-planting and bear-killing with a clear con- 
science and a knowledge that he had done fearlessly 
and honestly what he believed to be his duty. 

And now let us take an intimate look at this man 



CROCKETT AS CONGRESSMAN 125 

who, springing from the most obscure origin, had 
climbed, unaided by education, wealth, or influ- 
ence, to nation-wide fame. We will quote the 
words of one who visited him at this time : — 

"Some time in the month of , in the year , 

while traveling through the Western District, I heard 
Colonel Crockett, the great bear hunter, so frequently 
mentioned that I determined to visit him. Obtaining 
directions, I left the highroad and sought his residence. My 
route, for many miles, lay through a country uninteresting 
from its sameness; and I found myself on the morning of 
the third day within eight miles of Colonel Crockett's. 
Having refreshed myself and horse, I set out to spend the 
remainder of the day with him, pursuing a small blazed 
trail which bore no marks of being often traveled, and 
jogged on, wondering what sort of a reception I should meet 
with from a man who, by quirky humors unequaled, had 
obtained for himself a never-dying reputation. 

"The character which had been given of the Colonel, 
both by his friends and foes, induced me to hope for a 
kind welcome ; but doubting, — for I still believed him a 
bear in appearance, — I pursued my journey until a small 
opening brought me in sight of a cabin which, from descrip- 
tion, I identified as the home of the celebrated hunter of the 
West. 

"It was in appearance rude and uninviting, situated in 
a small field of eight or ten acres, which had been cleared 
in the wild woods ; no yard surrounded it, and it seemed to 
have been lately settled. In the passage of the house were 
seated two men in their shirt sleeves, cleaning rifles. I 



126 DAVY CROCKETT 

strained my eyes as I rode up to see if I could identify in 
either of them the great bear hunter ; but before I could 
decide, my horse had stopped at the bars, and there walked 
out, in plain homespun attire, with a black fur cap on, a 
finely proportioned man, about six feet high, aged, from ap- 
pearance, forty-five. His countenance was frank and manly, 
and a smile played over it as he approached me. He brought 
with him a rifle, and from his right shoulder hung a bag 
made of raccoon skin, to which, by means of a sheath, was 
appended a huge butcher's knife. 

"'This is Colonel Crockett's residence, I presume?' 

"'Yes, sir.' 

"'Have I the pleasure of seeing that gentleman before 
me?' 

"'If it be a pleasure, you have, sir.' 

"'Well, Colonel, I have ridden much out of my way to 
spend a day or two with you, and take a hunt.' 

" ' Get down, sir ; I am delighted to see you ; I like to see 
strangers ; and the only care I have is, that I cannot ac- 
commodate them as well as I could wish. I have no corn ; 
you see I've but lately moved here ; but I'll make my little 
boy take your horse over to my son-in-law's ; he is a good 
fellow, and will take care of him.' Walking in, — 'My 
brother, let me make you acquainted with Mr. — of — ; 
my wife, Mr. — ; my daughters, Mr. — . You see, we are 
mighty rough here. I am afraid you will think it hard times, 
but we have to do the best we can. I started mighty poor, 
and have been rooting long ever since ; what I live upon 
always, I think a friend can for a day or two. I have but 
little, but that little is as free as the water that runs — so 
make yourself at home. Here are newspapers and some 
books.' 



CROCKETT AS CONGRESSMAN 127 

"His free mode of conversation made me feel quite easy ; 
and a few moments gave me leisure to look around. His 
cabin within was clean and neat, and bore about it many- 
marks of comfort. The many trophies of wild animals 
spread over his house and yard, his dogs — in appearance 
war-worn veterans, lying about sunning themselves — all 
told truly that I was at the home of the celebrated hunter. 

"His family were dressed by the work of their own 
hands ; and there was a neatness and simplicity in their ap- 
pearance very becoming. His wife was rather grave and 
quiet, but attentive and kind to strangers; his daughters 
diffident and retiring, perhaps too much so, but uncom- 
monly beautiful, and fine specimens of the native worth of 
the female character; for, entirely uneducated, they were 
not only agreeable but fascinating. 

"There are no schools near them, yet they converse well 
— and if they did not one would be apt to think so, for they 
are extremely pretty, and tender to a stranger, sharing with 
so much kindness the comforts of their little cabin. The 
Colonel has no slaves; his daughters attend to the dairy 
and kitchen, while he performs the more laborious duties of 
his farm. He has but lately moved where he now resides, 
and consequently had to fix anew. He took me over his 
little field of corn, which he himself had cleared and grubbed, 
talked of the quantity he should make, his peas, pumpkins, 
etc., with the same pleasure that a Mississippi planter 
would have shown me his cotton estate, or a James River 
Virginia planter would have carried me over his wide in- 
heritance. 

"The newspapers being before us, called up the subject 
of politics. I held in high estimation the present adminis- 
tration of our country. To this he was opposed. His views, 



128 DAVY CROCKETT 

however, delighted me; and, were they more generally 
adopted, we should not be losers. He was opposed to the 
administration, and yet conceded that many of its acts were 
wise and efficient, and would have received his cordial sup- 
port. 

"He admired Mr. Clay, but had objections to him. He 
was opposed to the tariff, yet, I think, a supporter of the 
bank. He seemed to have the most horrible objection to 
binding himself to any man, or set of men. He said he would 
as lief be an old coon dog, as to be obliged to do what any 
man, or set of men, would tell him was right. The present ad- 
ministration he would support as far as he would any other ; 
and that was, as far as he believed its views to be correct. 
He would pledge himself to support no administration; 
when the will of his constituents was known to him, it was 
his law ; when unknown, his judgment was his guide. 

"I remarked to him that his district was so thorough- 
going for Jackson I thought he would never be elected. 

'*He said, 'he didn't care, he believed his being left out 
was of service to him, for it had given him time to go to 
work ; he had cleared his corn field, dug a well, built his 
cabins,' etc., and, says he, 'if they won't elect me with my 
opinions, I can't help it.'" 

During the next two years Colonel Crockett 
remained at home, writing the story of his own 
life, and laying his plans for the next congressional 
election ; for he decided not to stay whipped. By 
this time he had come to be a popular, if not pol- 
ished, stump speaker. The way he shot his points 
into the minds of his hearers proved him to be ex- 



CROCKETT AS CONGRESSMAN 129 

pert with a weapon other than a rifle. Then, too, 
his four years in Washington had taught him much, 
so that he did not appear quite the backwoodsman 
he once was. 

Crockett's fourth campaign for a seat in Congress 
was in 1833, and was not unlike the one that pre- 
ceded it in which he had been beaten. He was 
opposed by all the Jackson forces, namely, by the 
newspapers, politicians, and small-fry lawyers of the 
district. 

As usual, he attended the barbecues and shoot- 
ing matches which were the great gathering places 
of the people. And as usual his wit and ready 
repartee, together with his now well-established 
reputation for honesty and independence, gained 
him votes. 

In the election that followed this campaign 
Crockett surprised the country by beating the 
Jackson forces by two hundred and two votes. 

Again he went to Washington and became more 
than ever the idol of those who opposed what they 
termed Jackson's high-handed disregard of the 
Constitution. People called Davy ^Hhe honest 
Congressman," ''the supporter of the Constitu- 
tion," and indeed there were some who, under 
their breath, began to hint that the great bear 
hunter might make a good President ! 



I30 DAVY CROCKETT 

In relating his attitude toward President Jackson, 
Crockett said he proposed to follow Jackson so 
long as Jackson went straight; then he told the 
story of the farmer who directed his son to plow 
straight toward the red cow that was standing in 
a far corner of the field. The lad obeyed to the 
letter. But the cow wouldn't stand still ; it wan- 
dered all over the field, the lad following. When 
the father saw the crooked furrow, he was of course 
enraged and scolded the boy. The lad's excuse 
was that his father had told him '^ to plow to the red 
cow" and he had obeyed, but that she wouldn't 
stand still, and in obeying his orders he had to 
follow the cow all over the lot. Colonel Crockett 
didn't propose to make a crooked furrow in order 
to follow General Jackson's lead ! 



CHAPTER XII 
A Wonderful Journey 

At this time there was great curiosity through- 
out the country to see Colonel Crockett, the 
Congressman from the backwoods of Tennessee, 
who dared to stand out against ''Old Hickory." 
Particularly was this so in the North and East. 
Jackson had the most enemies in those sections, 
because many of his measures appeared to be 
aimed at them. Crockett, on his part, was curious 
also to see the people of these sections. He had 
been taught to think of them as tricksters in trade, 
hypocrites in religion, and selfishly opposed to a 
true democratic government. But in Congress 
he had met many men from New England and else- 
where, and he had liked them so well that he 
wondered what sort of people they represented. 

His health not being good, his physician told 
him to quit his work at Washington and travel. 
This gave him the needed excuse, and he decided 
to visit the great cities of the Atlantic Coast. He 
first took the stage to Baltimore, where, on his 

131 



132 DAVY CROCKETT 

arrival, April 25, 1834, he was cordially received 
and entertained at Barnum's Hotel. The next 
morning he went, by boat and rail, to Philadelphia. 

The seventeen miles of railroad from Delaware 
City to Chesapeake Bay was the first he had seen. 
As he says, it was "sl clean new sight" to him. It 
was only nine years before this that the first loco- 
motive had been brought from England. Perhaps 
the train and the track on which Crockett rode 
would surprise us as much as it did him. The rails 
were flat. The smokestack of the engine was as 
big as the boiler. Just behind the engine came a 
flat car that carried the wood and water with which 
to make the steam. Then followed several cars 
that looked like the four-in-hand coaches of that 
day. Crockett said the engine "wheezed Hke it 
had the tizzick" and that she '^went with a blue 
streak after us." 

The approach to Philadelphia was by boat. 
Most of the way Crockett stood on deck with the 
captain who pointed out to him the objects of 
interest they passed. As the boat neared the city 
the Colonel noticed that the crew were dressing her 
with flags. On asking the captain what it meant, 
he was told that this was to tell the people that 
Crockett was on board. When the docks came in 
view, they were black with people, and when the 



A WONDERFUL JOURNEY 133 

captain pointed him out to the great crowd craning 
their necks to see him, a great huzza went up that 
filled Davy with astonishment and made him 
"feel," as he said, ''sort of queer." 

As he landed the crowd surged about him, crying, 
"Give me the hand of an honest man!" Finally 
he was rescued from his enthusiastic admirers, 
hurried into a barouche drawn by four fine horses, 
and driven through streets full of cheering people 
to the United States Hotel, where a surging mob 
in the street would not leave till he had appeared 
on the balcony and told them that on the follow- 
ing day he would speak to them. Writing of this 
experience, he says, "I thought I would rather be 
in the wilderness, with my gun and my dogs, than 
to be attracting all that fuss. I had never seen the 
like before, and did not know exactly what to say 
or do." But he decided to trust to the good luck 
that had got him "through many a scrape before." 

The next day Crockett made good his promise, 
and spoke to five thousand people at the Exchange. 
When the speech was finished, he was given three 
times three cheers and thousands shook his hand. 
Philadelphia cordially hated Jackson, and its way 
of showing it was to honor that other Tennesseean 
of lowly birth who, in the teeth of angry scorn and 
protest, dared stand out against him. 



134 DAVY CROCKETT 

Crockett said that seeing the great throng in the 
street, as he was going to the Exchange, he almost 
wished to take back his promise to make a speech, 
but that he was prevented from doing so by having 
a youngster say, as he passed, '^Go ahead, Davy 
Crockett." With these two words of his motto, 
^'Go ahead," ringing in his ears, he said to himself, 
*'I have faced the enemy; these are friends. I 
have fronted the savage red man of the forest; 
these are civilized. I'll keep cool and let them 
have it." 

That evening Crockett attended a theater and 
saw a play called ^'Jim Crow." But he said it 
wouldn't compare, in dancing and fun, with an 
all-night country dance back in Tennessee. 

The next day some Philadelphians gave him a 
forty-dollar seal for a watch-charm, bearing a de- 
sign showing two racing horses, and over them the 
words *'Go ahead." At the same time a number 
of young Whigs called and asked him to tell them 
the points of a good rifle, as they wished to have 
one made for him. Crockett told them that a 
rifle was an article he knew something about, and 
gave them the size, weight, etc. Later, as we 
shall see, a beautiful rifle, made after the great 
hunter's specifications, was placed in his hands. 

On the eve of Colonel Crockett's departure for 



A WONDERFUL JOURNEY 135 

New York, which was on April 29, the proprietor 
of the United States Hotel gave his guest and 
friends a ''pick-nick supper, which means," said 
Crockett, "as much as me and all my company 
could eat and drink and nothing to pay." 

At New York, which he declared was ''a bulger 
of a place," the great hunter-Congressman was 
welcomed by another enthusiastic reception. He 
was taken to the Battery and shown the shipping 
in the harbor. The masts of the ships looked to 
him *'like the dead trunks of so many trees in a 
clearing." He attended the theater and saw the 
noted actress, Fanny Kemble, whom he described 
as "like a handsome piece of changeable silk." 

That night, after returning to his hotel, the fire- 
bells rang out and Davy rushed for his hat and 
coat. He wanted to help put out the fire! His 
friends held him back. "Ain't you going to help 
put it out?" he asked, wonderingly. "No," re- 
plied his friends, "we have fire companies here and 
we leave it to them." That seemed queer to Davy, 
for had a fire occurred in his country he would 
have jumped on a horse bareback and would have 
ridden full-flight to help put it out. 

While in New York some friends took Crockett 
to a shooting match in Jersey City. Every one of 
course wanted to see Davy handle a rifle, and he 



136 DAVY CROCKETT 

was asked to shoot. The target was set at one 
hundred yards with a rest. Davy lifted his gun 
and, firing offhand, sent a shot within two inches 
of the bull's-eye. Since his usual distance was 
forty yards without a rest, and he was handling a 
strange gun, the feat was considered remarkable. 
Then some one put up a silver quarter, and Davy 
ruined it at the first shot. 

Then the distinguished traveler went by boat to 
Providence, and from there forty miles by coach to 
Boston, making the run in four hours. 

In Boston, Crockett stopped at the Tremont 
House. He visited Faneuil Hall, the ''Cradle of 
Liberty," and said of it, ''God grant that the lib- 
erty-tree bough on which this cradle rocks may 
never break ! " 

He paid a visit to the good ship Constitution, 
which in the war of 181 2 had sunk the British ship 
Guerriere and settled the proposition that, man for 
man and ship for ship, America was equal to the 
best on earth in a sea fight. 

He went to the battle-field of Bunker Hill, where 
a grateful people were then erecting a monument. 
Davy said, "I felt like calHng them [the patriot 
soldiers] up, and asking them to tell me how to 
help to protect the liberty they bought for us with 
their blood ; but as I could not do so, I resolved, on 



A WONDERFUL JOURNEY 137 

that holy ground, to go for my country, always 
and everywhere." 

Some of his admirers wanted him to visit Har- 
vard College at Cambridge, but he refused "for 
fear they would tack an LL.D. after his name," as 
they had in the case of Jackson. He made a speech 
at the State House on Boston Common before an 
immense crowd and was cheered to the echo. 
When he left Boston, it was with a heart full of 
pride and gratitude. 

Colonel Crockett returned home by the way of 
Philadelphia. When he reached there, the young 
men who had inquired of him as to the proper 
weight and dimensions of a good rifle, gave him a 
splendid weapon with all its accouterments, as well 
as a beautiful knife and a tomahawk of razor steel. 

On accepting the rifle Colonel Crockett made a 
speech in which he said : — 

"Gentlemen: I receive this rifle from the young men of 
Philadelphia as a testimony of friendship, which I hope 
never to live to forget. This is a favorite article with me, 
and would have been my choice above all presents that could 
have been selected. I love a good gun, for it makes a man 
feel independent, and prepared either for war or peace. 

"This rifle does honor to the gentleman who made it. I 
must say, long as I have been accustomed to handle a gun, 
I have never seen anything that could come near a compari- 
son to her in beauty. I cannot think that ever such a rifle 



138 DAVY CROCKETT 

was made, either in this or any other country; and how, 
gentlemen, to express my gratitude to you for your splendid 
present, I am at a loss. This much, however, I will say, 
that myself and my sons will not forget you while we use 
this token of your kindness for our amusement. If it should 
become necessary to use her in defense of the liberty of our 
country, in my time, I will do as I have done before ; and if 
the struggle should come when I am buried in the dust, I will 
leave her in the hands of some who will honor your present 
in company with your sons, in standing for our country's 
rights." 

Two days later the people of Philadelphia cele- 
brated the Fourth of July, and Crockett being in 
the city, he was compelled to make three speeches 
in company with some of the greatest orators of 
the day, among them Daniel Webster. He after- 
ward said that nothing could have stimulated him 
to do this but the fact that he was in Philadelphia, 
that it was the Fourth of July, and that he was ^' in 
sight of the old State House and Independence 
Square, where the fathers of our country met, as it 
were, with halters on their necks, and subscribed 
their names to the Declaration of Independence." 

The next day Colonel Dupont, the great powder 
maker, presented Crockett with a dozen canisters 
of the best sportsman's powder. 

Crockett journeyed from Philadelphia to Pitts- 
burg, arriving there in the night. After a few 



A WONDERFUL JOURNEY 139 

hours spent with friends, he boarded an Ohio 
River steamboat and started down that river, 
making friends with captain, crew, and passengers, 
by asking and answering questions, and "swap- 
ping yarns." 

The people at Wheeling, Cincinnati, and Louis- 
ville eagerly awaited his coming, and at each place 
he was surrounded by crowds who demanded that 
lie should make a speech. At Louisville he ad- 
dressed the largest crowd which, up to that time, 
had ever gathered in that city. On the 2 2d of 
July, 1834, he reached Mill's Point, Tennessee, 
where his son William met him, and together they 
drove the thirty-five miles to his home. 

Referring to this home-coming, Crockett writes : 
"In a short time I set out for my own home ; yes, 
my own home, my own soil, and my own humble 
dwelling, my own family, my own hearts, my own 
ocean of love and affecrion which neither circum- 
stances nor time can dry up. Here, Hke the wearied 
bird, let me settle down for a while, and shut out 
the world." 



CHAPTER XIII 
Crockett in Defeat 

We can imagine the surprise and joy of the wife 
and children and the astonishment of the neighbors 
as they beheld the man who had gone out from 
them a rough, illiterate backwoodsman, now re- 
turned to them a man of national renown who had 
been feasted and petted by the rich and the great 
of North and East, with a broadened knowledge 
and the self-poise that comes from travel and min- 
gling with men. 

With what eager curiosity must they have 
touched the beautiful rifle, the like of which had 
never been seen or dreamed of in Tennessee, and 
the long glistening knife and tomahawk, the best 
the workers in steel could make. 

But all that Crockett had gone through had not 
spoiled him in the least. He was the same Davy, 
though more serious, more thoughtful, and more 
eager to make something of himself in the great 
world whose good opinion he had earned by honest 
work and by living up to his motto, "Go ahead. '^ 

140 



CROCKETT IN DEFEAT 141 

A few days after his return he tried his beautiful 
rifle on a fine buck, and brought him down at one 
hundred and thirty steps. Not a bad shot, you 
say. Not a bad gun, says Davy. 

After a little practice he tried the new gun at a 
shooting match. We quote Davy's own descrip- 
tion of such a match as held in Western Tennessee 
in his day : — 

" In the latter part of summer our cattle get very fat, as the 
range is remarkably fine ; and some one, desirous of raising 
money on one of his cattle, advertises that on a particular 
day, and at a given place, a first-rate beef will be shot for. 

''When the day comes, every marksman in the neighbor- 
hood will meet at the appointed place, with his gun. After 
the company has assembled, a subscription paper is handed 
round, with the following heading : 

"'A. B. offers a beef worth twenty dollars, to be shot for, 
at twenty-five cents a shot.' Then the names are put 
down by each person, thus : 

D. C. puts in four shots $1.00 

E. F. puts in eight shots 2.00 

G. H. puts in two shots 0.50 

"And thus it goes round, until the price is made up. 

"Two persons are then selected, who have not entered 
for shots, to act as judges of the match. Every shooter gets 
a board, and makes a cross in the center of his target. The 
shot that drives the center, or comes nearest to it, gets the 
hide and tallow, which is considered the first choice. The 
next nearest gets his choice of the hind quarters ; the third 
gets the other hind quarter ; the fourth takes choice of the 



142 DAVY CROCKETT 

fore quarters ; the fifth, the remaining quarter ; and the sixth 
gets the lead in the tree against which we shoot. 

''The judges stand near the tree, and when a man fires 
they cry out, 'Who shot?' and the shooter gives in his 
name ; and so on, till all have shot. The judges then take 
all the boards, and go off by themselves, and decide what 
quarter each man has won. Sometimes one will get nearly 
aU." 

On his return home from his third term in Con- 
gress, Davy put on his hunting clothes and went 
into the woods, thinking that again he could follow 
his dogs after the bear and the deer and the wild 
turkey, but to his surprise he found the sport did 
not appeal to him as once it did. As he wandered 
through the marshes looking for bear, his mind was 
on the sights of the city, the great cheering crowds, 
the pretty speeches made to him, the flattery, and 
the praise. He heard himself called "the supporter 
of the Constitution," ''the honest Congressman," 
"the brave politician," and he felt the desire to go 
back ; and who could say but that the people of his 
party might turn to him to beat Jackson for the 
Presidency ! Another-Congressional election was to 
take place in the fall. He would run again. He 
had no fear but what the honest and true men of 
his district, who knew him to be brave and sincere, 
would return him to his seat in Congress with an 
increased majority. 



CROCKETT IN DEFEAT 143 

But Davy reckoned without his host. From 
being a supporter of Jackson, he had become his 
bitter foe, while the people of Tennessee were still 
for Jackson. The campaign was conducted as 
before. Davy spoke to the people in much the 
old way, but now with more knowledge of what he 
was talking about. He still had his stories and 
his wit ; he carried his beautiful rifle and showed 
he had not lost his skill as a marksman ; he still 
wore the foxskin cap, the fringed leather leggins, 
and the hunting shirt. But the people could not 
forgive him for opposing their idol, General Jack- 
son, and he lost by two hundred and thirty votes. 

Davy's defeat was a bitter disappointment to 
him. He had become used to public life and his 
appetite for politics, he said, ^^was about as sharp 
set as a sawmill"; more than that, he beHeved 
there were still bigger things in store for him. In 
this defeat he saw his hopes wither and fly away. 
His enemies of the Jackson party were triumphant. 
Davy railed and stormed. He charged that the 
election was stolen, and that votes for his op- 
ponent were bought at twenty-five dollars a head. 
And probably, if the facts were known, he really 
was beaten by fraud, for of all the men who op- 
posed ''Old Hickory," Davy Crockett was the 
most disliked and the most feared. 



144 DAVY CROCKETT 

Leaving our hero sulking in his cabin, we will take 
a glance at a new country far to the west and south 
on which erelong his restless eye became fixed. 

At the opening of the nineteenth century Texas 
was a vast, unknown region save to the Spaniards, 
Mexicans, and Indians, and to a few thousand ad- 
venturous Americans. The Spaniards had estab- 
lished missions on the Gulf Coast as long before as 
the year 1700, and a little later they built their 
adobe mission houses some distance in the interior. 
These houses were built like forts, for the Coman- 
ches and Apaches who occupied the country looked 
with fierce hatred upon the newcomers, who came, 
they said, not only to convert them to Christian- 
ity, but to rob them of their homes and their hunt- 
ing grounds. 

These adobe houses, or castles, withstood all 
attacks of the Indians ; and, as we look upon them 
to-day and see the skill shown in their construction, 
we can well understand how they could hold out 
against an enemy whose chief weapons were the 
bow and arrow and the tomahawk. 

As was natural, when the tide of American 
emigration began to push out beyond the Missis- 
sippi, there came a conflict between the Mexicans, 
who were Spanish, and of whose country Texas 
was a part, and the hardy frontiersmen. 



CROCKETT IN DEFEAT 145 

Then came a dispute between Mexico and the 
United States as to the boundary line. This 
dispute settled, the quarrel still went on between 
the two races. The Mexicans, known as 
''greasers/' were hated by the Americans, and the 
hatred was repaid on the other side twofold. 
The Mexicans were ignorant, deceitful, treacher- 
ous, and tyrannical. The men sent from Mexico 
City to govern Texas were braggarts, — unscrupu- 
lous and bloodthirsty. They stole and killed with- 
out conscience and without fear. 

On the other hand, the American settlers of 
the early days were little better. Indeed, they 
could hardly be called settlers at all. Among the 
twenty thousand or less Americans in Texas in 
1833 were, of course, some earnest, industrious, 
well-meaning men, but the great majority were 
adventurers of the worst type. There were 
pirates and outlaws from the bayous of Louisiana, 
gamblers and sharpers from the Mississippi, cut- 
throats and robbers driven from the settlements 
on the western slopes of the Alleghanies, as well as 
escaped criminals and refugees from the Eastern 
States. Indeed, taking the Mexicans and Ameri- 
cans together, perhaps no ugHer spot could then be 
found on the face of the earth than Texas. No 
wonder that it became known as ''the bloody 



146 DAVY CROCKETT 

ground/' and that, when a criminal of the North 
or East escaped, it was always said, *'He has gone 
to Texas." 

Consider, then, such men living in a country 
ruled over by ignorant, vicious, and bloodthirsty 
men, and you will learn the cause of the constant 
stories of plunder and outrage that were wafted 
back to older settlements on every wing, and that 
fanned the passions of the half-savage men of the 
American frontiers, until soon a great stream of 
fighting Americans poured out of the mountains 
and the forests, bound for Texas. 

In 1833 the Americans in Texas decided to strike 
for independence and cast off forever the hated 
Mexican yoke. They met and prepared a State 
Constitution and issued an address to the Mexican 
government. 

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, one of 
the worst characters in all history, was then at 
the head of the Mexican government. He was at 
that time thirty-five years old. At the age of 
twenty-three he had been a lieutenant colonel in 
the Spanish army. 

The revolution was now on. The Americans 
organized a government ; Henry Smith was elected 
governor, and Sam Houston was made commander 
in chief. San Antonio was taken December 10, 



CROCKETT IN DEFEAT 147 

1835, and in a short time the Mexican army was 
out of Texas. 

On December 20, at Goliad, the Texas Decla- 
ration of Independence was issued. Then in the 
spring of 1836 Santa Anna, at the head of seven 
thousand five hundred men, marched out of the 
City of Mexico, bound for Texas, to drive the 
Americans out of the country and regain his lost 
territory. 

This was the news that, coming to the ears of 
Davy Crockett in his peaceful home on the Obion, 
stirred all the fighting blood that was in him, and 
caused him to shoulder the beautiful rifle that at 
Philadelphia he had said he would ''use if need be 
for his country's glory," and start for Texas. In 
speaking of his decision he says, "My life has been 
one of danger, toil, and privation, but these diffi- 
culties I had to encounter at a time when I con- 
sidered it nothing more than right good sport to 
surmount them ; but now I start anew upon my 
own hook, and God only grant that it may be 
strong enough to support the weight that may be 
hung upon it. I have a new row to hoe, a long 
and rough one, but come what will I'll go ahead." 
At this time Crockett's feelings found an outlet 
in verse. He says in excuse that "sorrow will 
make even an oyster feel poetical." When he 



148 DAVY CROCKETT 

finished writing, the lines looked to him "as zig- 
zag as a worm fence," so he showed them to a 
literary friend who polished them up a bit. Here 
are two of the verses : — 

"Farewell to the mountains whose mazes to me 
Were more beautiful far than Eden could be ; 
No fruit was forbidden, but Nature had spread 
Her bountiful board, and her children were fed. 
The hills were our garners — our herds wildly grew, 
And Nature was shepherd and husbandman too. 
I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man, 
As I thanked the Great Giver, and worshiped his plan. 

"The home I forsake where my offspring arose ; 
The graves I forsake where my children repose ; 
The home I redeemed from the savage and wild ; 
The home I have loved as a father his child ; 
The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared, 
The flocks that I raised, and the cabin I reared ; 
The wife of my bosom — Farewell to ye all ! 
In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall." 

It is difficult to understand this eccentric man. 
He certainly loved his family. In his own story 
of his life he often speaks of them in the tenderest 
way. But he appears never to have considered 
them in his plans. For the greater part of six 
years he had been away from them, and now that 
he could stay at home and be a husband and helper 
to the good wife who uncomplainingly kept the 



CROCKETT IN DEFEAT 149 

little home and farm during all his long absences, 
and a father to the children who were growing up 
to manhood and womanhood, he decided to leave 
them again for a dangerous adventure in the 
borderland of Texas. 

We can see tears in the eyes of all, Davy in- 
cluded, as the husband and father, having burnished 
up his rifle and knife, and donned his foxskin cap 
with its tail dangHng behind, and his fringed 
leggins and hunting shirt, kissed them all good-by, 
and disappeared on the forest trail to the Mississippi 
River, never to return. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Starting for Texas 

On reaching the Mississippi at Mill's Point, 
a day's tramp through the forest, Davy Crockett 
boarded a steamer, The Mediterranean, one of the 
best of the river boats, bound down the river. His 
first objective point was Little Rock, Arkansas, 
as that time only a small settlement about three 
hundred miles from the mouth of the Arkansas 
River. To reach it he must go down the Mississippi 
to where the Arkansas joins it and then up the 
latter river. 

On the boat he was the center of interest, for 
his fund of stories was inexhaustible and his good 
humor, which misfortune was powerless to destroy, 
could be depended on to lighten the monotony of a 
long journey. The talk was mostly of the trouble 
in Texas. Many whom Davy met were, like him, 
on their way to join in the struggle to free Texas 
from Mexican rule. 

While the steamer was resting off Helena, during 
some bad weather, a number of those on board 

ISO 



STARTING FOR TEXAS 151 

drew up and signed a paper by which they pledged 
themselves to pay $90,000 into a fund to be used 
for the purpose of aiding their countrymen already 
in the field, and to be further used in recruiting 
five companies of two hundred and fifty men each. 
Crockett did not have the money to subscribe, 
but one of the ten- thousand-dollar subscriptions 
was made by three men with the understanding 
that it was to be known as Crockett's personal 
subscription. The fund itself was known as the 
"Crockett Fund," and every dollar subscribed 
was afterward paid in. 

When he reached Little Rock, it soon became 
known that the celebrated Colonel Crockett was 
at the tavern, and there was the usual curiosity 
to see him, and to witness some of his widely 
heralded feats with the rifle. A shooting match 
was therefore arranged. The best shots in the 
neighborhood were there. Each of these took a 
turn at the target and then they called on Davy. 
With the air of one asked to do an everyday, easy 
thing, he carelessly Hfted his beautiful "Betsey" 
(the name he gave his rifle), and to his own sur- 
prise the bullet struck exactly in the center of the 
bull's-eye. "There's no mistake in Betsey," he 
remarked in a careless way. Every one expressed 
surprise and admiration, but one man ventured 



152 DAVY CROCKETT 

to remark, '^Colonel, that must have been a chance 
shot." Crockett replied, ''I can do it five times 
out of six any day in the week." Crockett knew 
he was exaggerating, but he thought he might as 
well tell a ''big one" while he was telling one. 

There were some present who evidently had 
doubts of Davy's ability to repeat the perfor- 
mance and they wanted another match. Davy 
was slow to consent, but finally he did, and with 
much fear of the result. We will let Davy tell the 
story of the second trial which is not at all to his 
credit : — 

"When it came to my turn, I squared myself, and, turning 
to the prime shot, I gave him a knowing nod, by way of show- 
ing my confidence ; and, says I, 'Look out for the bull's-eye, 
stranger.' I blazed away, and I wish I may be shot if I 
didn't miss the target. They examined it all over, and could 
find neither hair nor hide of my bullet, and pronounced it a 
dead miss ; when, says I, 'stand aside and let me look, and I 
warrant you I get on the right trail of the critter.' They 
stood aside, and I examined the bull's-eye pretty particular, 
and at length cried out, 'Here it is, there is no snakes if it 
ha'n't followed the very track of the other.' They said it 
was utterly impossible, but I insisted on their searching the 
hole, and I agreed to be stuck up as a mark myself if they did 
not find two bullets there. They searched, for my satisfac- 
tion, and sure enough it all came out just as I had told them ; 
for I had picked up a bullet that had been fired, and stuck 
it deep into the hole, without any one perceiving it. They 



STARTING FOR TEXAS 153 

were all perfectly satisfied that fame had not made too great 
a flourish of trumpets when speaking of me as a marksman ; 
and they all said they had enough of shooting for that day." 

From Little Rock, Crockett, astride a fine horse 
lent him by his new acquaintances, started for 
Fulton, a point on the Red River about one hundred 
and twenty miles to the southwest. 

On crossing the Washita River he made the 
acquaintance, in an unusual way, of one of those 
hardy frontier missionaries of the early days who 
was peddling tracts among the Indians and rough 
men of the wilderness. When Davy came upon 
him, the poor fellow was sitting in a sulky in the 
middle of the stream, unable to go ahead or turn 
around, having tried to ford the stream in the 
wrong place. The man was all the while pla}dng 
on a fiddle, ''Hail, Columbia, happy land," and 
''Over the water to Charley." Crockett and his 
friends succeeded in getting the missionary safely 
out of his perilous position and then, the friends 
turning back home, the Colonel and the preacher 
rode on together for many miles. Crockett thus 
describes the ride : — 

"I kept in company with the parson until we arrived at 
Greenville, and I do say, he was just about as pleasant an 
old gentleman to travel with, as any man who wasn't too 
particular could ask for. We talked about politics, religion, 



154 DAVY CROCKETT 

and nature, farming, and bear hunting, and the many bless- 
ings that an all-bountiful Providence has bestowed upon our 
happy country. He continued to talk upon this subject, 
traveling over the whole ground as it were, until his imagina- 
tion glowed, and his soul became full to overflowing; he 
checked his horse, and I stopped mine also, and a stream of 
eloquence burst forth from his aged lips such as I have seldom 
listened to ; it came from the overflowing fountain of a pure 
and grateful heart. We were alone in the wilderness, but as 
he proceeded, it seemed to me as if the tall trees bent their 
tops to listen ; — that the mountain stream laughed out 
joyfully as it bounded on like some living thing ; that the 
fading flowers of autumn smiled, and sent forth fresher 
fragrance, as if conscious that they would revive in spring, 
and even the sterile rocks seemed to be endued with some 
mysterious influence. We were alone in the wilderness, but 
all things told me that God was there. The thought renewed 
my strength and courage. I had left my country, felt some- 
what like an outcast, believed that I had been neglected 
and lost sight of ; but I was now conscious that there was 
still one watchful Eye over me ; no matter whether I dwelt 
in the populous cities, or threaded the pathless forest alone ; 
no matter whether I stood in the high places among men, 
or made my solitary lair in the untrodden wild, that Eye 
was still upon me. My very soul leaped joyfully at the 
thought ; I never felt so grateful in all my life ; I never loved 
my God so sincerely in all my life. I felt that I still had a 
friend." 

At Fulton, Crockett arranged to send back his 
horse and took a steamer down the Red River to 
Natchitoches, Louisiana. On the way he made 



STARTING FOR TEXAS 155 

another interesting acquaintance and friend in the 
person of a gambler. Crockett himself was not a 
gambler and was opposed to gambling, but some- 
how he took to this fellow. Davy watched him 
for some time as the man, by clever juggling, 
succeeded in getting money from his fellow-pas- 
sengers. The trick was played by the use of three 
thimbles and a pea. The wager by the innocent 
victim was laid on his being able, after the thimbles 
and pea were moved about on a board by the 
trickster, to tell which thimble the pea was under. 
By a little sleight-of-hand work the gambler would 
confuse his victim every time. 

Crockett made the fellow's acquaintance, learned 
the story of his life, and induced him to give up 
gaming and go with him to Texas. He told him 
it was absurd for an able-bodied man, possessed 
of his full share of good sense, to voluntarily de- 
base himself in that way. The fellow complained 
that it was impossible for him to live like an honest 
man at that time of his life. ''I deny that," said 
Davy. ^'It is never too late to become honest. 
At any rate, you can go with me to Texas and die like 
a brave man, if need be." The man started from 
the table where they were sitting. ''I'll be a 
man again," he cried. ^'Live honestly or die 
bravely! I go with you to Texas!" 



156 DAVY CROCKETT 

Still another acquaintance, made at Natchi- 
toches, was a bee-hunter, one of those persons 
who by long practice is able to follow the course 
of bees and so discover their hives. Honey trees 
were many in Texas and honey brought a high price, 
so a bee-hunter was a person of some importance. 
This man was something of a poet and a singer. 
Crockett took a liking to him and induced him to 
join the reformed gambler and himself on their 
journey. 

So on horseback the three set out for Nacog- 
doches, a Spanish town one hundred and twenty 
miles to the west, in what is now the state of 
Texas. 

Their trail, which the bee-hunter knew, led over 
prairies and through forests, and was known as 
the old Spanish road, though ''road" at this time 
was hardly the right name, as part of the way 
it could only be made out by following blazed 
trees. 

At Nacogdoches his horse became lame, so 
Crockett traded it for a mustang, one of those 
wiry Httle horses that in early days roamed wild 
in droves of thousands over the Texas prairies. 
The Indians captured them by means of lassos 
and they were so numerous that they could be had 
very cheap ; indeed, when game was scarce, they 



STARTING FOR TEXAS 157 

were used as food. When Davy sat astride his 
new mount, his feet nearly touched the ground. 

The few days' stay in the Spanish town was 
enlivened by a little touch of sentiment. The 
bee-hunter had a sweetheart here, Katy by name. 
She was a blooming girl of eighteen and Crockett 
likens her to a wild flower of the prairie. When 
the three men were ready to depart, Katy appeared 
to say good-by, with a new deerskin jacket she 
had made for her lover, a fine gourd large enough 
to hold a gallon of water, and a small Bible. When 
leaving the tavern, Davy made a short speech 
to the company, in which he said, ''I will die with 
my Betsey in my arms. No, I will not die — I'll 
grin down the walls of the Alamo, and the Ameri- 
cans will lick up the Mexicans like fine salt." 
The bee-hunter kissed his weeping Katy and leaped 
upon his horse, singing, 

" Saddled and bridled and booted rode he, 
A plume in his helmet, a sword at his knee." 

Then, amid the huzzas of their friends, the three 
galloped away. 

From Nacogdoches they pushed on nearly three 
hundred miles to San Antonio, passing over treeless 
prairies, fording rivers, and threading their way 
through immense canebrakes. Sometimes these 



158 DAVY CROCKETT 

canebrakes extended for many miles, the trail 
through them being a mere path between walls 
of cane that grew to twenty feet in height and met 
at the top Hke a canopy. 

At times they sighted wild animals such as 
wolves, buffaloes, deer, wild turkeys, and wild 
horses, and Crockett's natural impulse was to follow 
them. In this, however, he was restrained by his 
companions, who reminded him that he was in a 
strange country and that he would certainly lose 
his way. 

At the home of an old woman where they stopped 
one night for supper they happened upon two other 
travelers. One was a raw-boned pirate in a sailor's 
jacket and tarpaulin hat, with disheveled, matted 
hair and beard, an ugly scar across his forehead 
and another across his right hand ; the other was a 
young Indian, bareheaded and dressed in deerskin, 
who looked Uke a wild animal. The two men were 
on their way to join the army at San Antonio 
(then known as Bexar) as were Crockett and his 
companions. When the party was sitting down to 
supper, the gambler, or "Thimblerig" as Davy 
called him, protested that he would not sit down to 
the table with a pirate ; whereupon the old sailor, 
drawing his long hunting knife and laying it on 
the table, calmly remarked, '' Stranger, you had 



STARTING FOR TEXAS 159 

better take a seat at the table, I think." Thimble- 
rig was not slow to take the hint, and took a seat 
on the bench next to Crockett. Nothing better 
illustrates the make-up of the men of Texas of 
that day than this motley group which was made up 
of an ex-Congressman and soldier, a gambler, a 
poet, a pirate, and an Indian. 

The five men now joined company, Crockett, 
the bee-hunter, and Thimblerig on horses, the 
pirate and the Indian on foot. It was not long 
before the pedestrians were left behind, but they 
announced that they would reach the Alamo as 
soon as the horsemen did. 



CHAPTER XV 
Crockett's Last Hunt 

One day at noon the three travelers were sitting 
about their camp fire, waiting for their dinner to 
cook, when the bee-hunter espied a bee. In a 
moment, to the surprise of his comrades, he was 
astride his horse and off across the prairie Hke a 
streak. 

The sudden departure of the bee-hunter was soon 
followed by a rumbling Hke distant thunder. This, 
in turn, was followed by a strange appearance in 
the western sky, as of a rapidly approaching cloud 
of dust that appeared to hug the earth and sweep 
directly toward them. 

*'What can all this mean?" asked Crockett. 

*'Burn my old shoes if I know," replied Thimble- 
rig. 

Running to the ponies that stood trembling 
with fear, they hurried them into a grove on a 
little rise of ground close at hand. They had just 
time in which to do this before there came down 
upon them an avalanche of shaggy forms moving 

i6o 



CROCKETT'S LAST HUNT i6i 

in a dark, shaggy, irresistible mass — buffaloes, 
four or five hundred of them, led by a great black 
bull with tail pointed straight out, nose almost 
grazing the earth, and projecting horns tearing up 
the turf. The sound of their hoofs beating on the 
ground and their bellowing made a sound like a 
continuous roll of thunder. It was frightful. 

Had the men and horses been in their pathway 
on the open plain, nothing in the world could 
have saved them. As it was they stood on the 
little hill, awed and wondering spectators of the 
scene. ''I never witnessed a sight more beautiful 
to the eye," says Davy. But the instinct of the 
hunter was still uppermost, and, as the black bull 
came on, Crockett's '^ Betsey" spoke, and with a 
great roar the big beast stopped, pawed the earth, 
and changed his course, followed by the entire 
herd. 

Reloading his rifle and seizing the bridle of his 
frightened pony, he sprang upon the animal's 
back and was off after the game with the speed of 
the wind. 

But the pace was too much for the mustang, 
as Davy in his excitement bent to the chase. With 
voice and spur he urged on his gallant little steed, 
but to no avail. Soon the great mass disappeared 
in a cloud of dust on the horizon, leaving the 



i62 DAVY CROCKETT 

panting pony and his rider alone on the prairie, 
miles from their starting point, for they had 
followed the chase for nearly two hours. 

Most hunters would, at this point, have retraced 
their steps. Not so the man whose motto was '' Go 
ahead." Allowing his pony a little rest, he pushed 
on for an hour or more when, all of a sudden, 
it dawned on him that he was lost. Crockett 
says his main anxiety, on making this discovery, 
was for Thimblerig, whom he had left alone in the 
little grove near the trail. 

The country in which he found himself was a 
veritable paradise and, writing of it afterward, he 
said that he, at one point of great beauty, reined 
in his horse and looking about him, exclaimed, 
*'God, what hast thou not done for man, and yet 
how little does he do for Thee ! Not even repays 
Thee with gratitude." 

After riding several hours without meeting a 
human being or finding a trail, he came upon a 
drove of wild horses, more than one hundred in 
number, that were quietly grazing on a beautiful, 
meadowHke prairie. As soon as the graceful 
creatures espied him they began neighing and 
coursing around him in circles which grew smaller 
and smaller, until he began to fear the consequences 
to himself. Davy's mustang fairly danced with 



CROCKETT'S LAST HUNT 163 

glee, and was not at all in favor of moving away 
from his new-found friends, and getting his rider 
safely out of his predicament. But sharp Spanish 
spurs soon brought him down to serious business. 
Crockett writes : — 

"My little animal was full of fire and mettle, and as it 
was the first bit of genuine sport that he had had for some 
time, he appeared determined to make the most of it. He 
kept the lead for full half an hour, frequently neighmg as if 

in triumph and derision A beautiful bay, who had 

trod close upon my heels the whole way, now came side by 
side with my mustang and we had it hip and thigh for about 
ten minutes, in such style as would have dehghted the heart 
of a true lover of the turf. I now felt an interest m the race 
myself, and, for the credit of my bit of blood, determmed 
to win it if it was at all in the nature of things. I plied the 
lash and spur, and the Httle critter took it quite kindly and 
tossed his head and neighed as much as to say, 'Colonel, I 
know what you're after - go ahead !' - and he cut dirt in 
beautiful style, I tell you. 

"This could not last forever. At length my competitor 
darted ahead somewhat ... and my little fellow was com- 
pelled to clatter after his tail, like a needy poUtician after an 
officeholder when he wants his influence, and which my 
mustang found it quite as difficult to reach. He hung on 
like grim death for some time longer, but at last his ambition 
began to flag; and having lost ground, others seemed to 
think that he was not the mighty critter he was cracked up to 
be no how, and they tried to outstrip him also. A second 
horse shot ahead and kicked up his heels in derision as he 



1 64 DAVY CROCKETT 

passed us ; then a third, a fourth, and so on, and even the 
scrubbiest Httle rascal in the whole drove was disposed to 
have a fling at their broken-down leader. . . . We now 
followed among the last of the drove until we came to the 
banks of the Navasota River. The foremost leaped from the 
margin into the rushing stream, the others, politician-like, 
followed him, though he would lead them to destruction; 
but my wearied animal fell on the banks completely ex- 
hausted." 

After an hour's effort to get his pony again 
on his feet, Crockett gave it up and made prep- 
aration to camp for the night. Near by was a 
big tree that had been blown down. Among its 
branches a snug bed could be made for the night. 
With knife in hand he began beating among the 
branches, when a low growl startled him. Peering 
carefully about, he found his own eyes looking into 
the fiery eyes of a Mexican cougar. The beast 
was not more than half a dozen paces away, crouch- 
ing for the spring. Rays of light darted from his 
large eyes, and his teeth glistened. There was not 
a moment to lose. To retreat was out of the ques- 
tion. Quick as a flash ''Betsey" was at the 
hunter's shoulder and a shot went crashing on its 
way. A furious growl followed, and when Crockett 
looked to see the animal tumble to the earth, he 
saw him only shaking his head as if a bee had 
stung him. The shot had struck the forehead and 



CROCKETT'S LAST HUNT 165 

glanced off. Davy began at once to retreat, but 
before he had gone three steps the cougar sprang 
at him. Instinctively he stepped aside and, as the 
animal alighted on the ground, he struck him with 
the barrel of his rifle. But an unloaded gun was 
of no service, so he threw it down and grasped his 
big hunting knife. They were now at close 
quarters. The cougar was fastening his teeth into 
one of Crockett's arms when a knife thrust made 
him let go. Then, as Davy tells it, 

"He wheeled about and came at me with increased fury, 
occasioned by the smarting of his wound. I now tried to 
blind him, knowing that if I succeeded he would become an 
easy prey; so as he approached me I watched my op- 
portunity and aimed a blow at his eyes with my knife ; but 
unfortunately it struck him on the nose, and he paid no other 
attention to it than by a shake of the head and a low growl. 
He pressed me close, and as I was stepping backward my 
foot tripped in a vine, and I fell to the ground. He was 
down upon me like a nighthawk on a June bug. He 
seized hold of the outer part of my right thigh, which af- 
forded him considerable amusement; the hinder part of 
his body was towards my face ; I grasped his tail with my 
left hand, and tickled his ribs with my knife which I held 
in my right. Still the critter wouldn't let go his hold, and 
as I found that he would lacerate my leg dreadfully unless 
he was speedily shaken off, I tried to hurl him down the bank 
into the river, for our scuffle was on its edge. I stuck my 
knife into his side and summoned all my strength to throw 



1 66 DAVY CROCKETT 

him over. He resisted, and he was desperate heavy; but 
at last I got him so far down the dedivity that he lost his 
balance, and he rolled over and over till he landed on the 
margin of the river, but in his fall he dragged me along with 
him. Fortunately, I fell uppermost and his neck presented 
a fair mark for my hunting knife. Without allowing myself 
time even to draw breath, I aimed one desperate blow at his 
neck, and the knife entered his gullet up to the handle, and 
reached his heart. He struggled for a few moments and 
died." 

Davy said that bear fighting v^ras mere child's 
play compared with this, and that he hoped this 
would prove to be his last cougar fight, as it was 
his first. 

After washing his wound and getting his breath, 
he built a fire and prepared his supper, and then, 
wrapped in his horse blanket, sank exhausted into 
a sound sleep amid the branches of the tree he had 
fought so hard to possess. 

In the morning his first thought was of the pony 
which he had left the evening before lying ex- 
hausted near the camp fire. His fear was that the 
creature had died during the night. But no pony 
was to be seen. It had disappeared without 
leaving *' trace of hair or hide." 

This was a bad predicament, surely. Alone on 
a boundless prairie and without the faintest idea 
of which way to go for succor. But Crockett had 



CROCKETT'S LAST HUNT 167 

been in peril before. To him fear was a stranger. 
He fully realized his danger, but calmly he set 
about getting his breakfast. A short distance 
away, on the river, he saw a flock of wild geese. 
It didn't take long to bring down a fat gander, 
strip him of his feathers, run a stick through him 
for a spit, and, resting this on two pronged sticks 
over a fire, prepare as luscious a roast goose as ever 
graced a table. He carried a little coffee and a 
tin cup and there was water close at hand. So, 
though lost on the prairie and deserted by his pony, 
he had a good breakfast to be thankful for. 

After eating heartily, the hunter prepared to 
start out afoot in search of a trail that might 
lead him to safety. Hardly had he taken a step 
before he heard the clatter of hoofs. For a moment 
he thought another herd of buffaloes was bearing 
down upon him. He was not left long in suspense, 
for quickly there came into view a band of half- 
naked Comanches, some fifty in number, mounted 
on fine horses and well equipped with rifles, spears, 
and knives. They came at full gallop, sitting on 
their mounts as if horse and rider were one, all 
painted and plumed, a sight at once beautiful and 
alarming. At their head rode three old squaws who 
made a noise with their mouths that was a fair 
imitation of trumpets. As they dashed up, they 



i68 DAVY CROCKETT 

divided into two lines. Each line wheeled in a 
half circle and in a moment Crockett was sur- 
rounded. The leader then dismounted and walked 
up to where the hunter stood. The latter held his 
rifle in readiness for action if the strangers showed 
fight. The Indian's eye caught the beauty of the 
weapon, and then Crockett began to fear the chief 
was about to appropriate it for himself. 

*'The chief," Crockett says, 'Vas for making 
love to my beautiful Betsey, but I clung fast to 
her and, assuming an air of composure, I demanded 
whether their nation was at war with the Americans. 
' No,' was the reply. ' Do you like the Americans ? ' 
'Yes, they are our friends.' ^ Where do you get 
your spearheads, your rifles, your blankets, and 
your knives?' 'Get them from our friends, the 
Americans.^ 'Well, do you think if you were 
passing through their nation, as I am passing 
through yours, they would attempt to rob you of 
your property?' 'No, they would feed me, and 
protect me; and the Comanche will do the same 
by his white brother.' " 

Crockett then asked how they had discovered 
him, and the chief replied that they had seen the 
smoke from his fire. The Indian inquired how 
the hunter happened to be there alone and Davy 
told his story. The redskin gave a little chuckling 



CROCKETT'S LAST HUNT 169 

laugh over the trick the mustang had played, and 
then said that as Crockett was a brave man he 
should have a horse; whereupon he ordered a 
fine young animal to be brought forward. 

Crockett, accompanied by the Indians, went 
to look for his saddle and bridle ; but on reaching 
the spot where he had left it, he found one of the 
three squaws eating the remains of his goose, while 
another one was making off with his saddle as fast 
as she could. The chief, however, put a stop to her 
thieving. 

Meanwhile, other Indians had discovered the 
dead cougar and were skinning it. The many knife 
wounds in its body showed the desperate nature of 
the fight. This so won the admiration of the 
Indians that they called the hunter ''brave man," 
and the chief asked him to join the tribe. Davy 
declined the invitation, and asked to be shown the 
way to the Colorado River. The request was 
granted, and the entire party set off, led by the 
three squaws, who, as Davy says, ''kept up a con- 
tinuous braying." 

Crockett himself describes this ride with the 
Indians as one of continuous pleasure. He en- 
livened the way by telling the chief stories of his 
adventures, and the Indians amply repaid him by 
exhibitions of their horsemanship which excited 



I70 DAVY CROCKETT 

his admiration, for the Comanches were among the 
finest riders in the world. They lived in a country 
over which roamed great droves of wild horses, and 
they were expert throwers of the lasso, so they al- 
ways had fine mounts. Even the children and the 
women could spring unaided to the backs of half- 
tamed horses ; and, without any saddle, and with 
only a twist of grass for a bridle, could perform 
astonishing feats of horsemanship. 

On the ride they came upon a drove of wild horses 
led by a beautiful stallion. At once an Indian 
grasped his lasso and, riding cautiously forward, at- 
tempted to secure a prize, but the wily animals, 
with heads and tails aloft, followed their leader in 
a great circle about the Indian, and then, striking 
off at a furious gallop, disappeared beyond a knoll 
to the west. But one, a mustang, remained behind. 
The Indian swung his right arm above his head. 
The rope uncoiled and the noose fell true, but the 
pony had ducked his head between his legs and 
was free. Strange to say, however, he did not 
move, but allowed the Indian to approach and 
take him. 

On coming up, Crockett found it was his own 
mustang that had played the trick on him the 
night before. He says that the animal on seeing 
him cast down his eyes and looked sheepish ! The 



CROCKETT'S LAST HUNT 171 

reason for his not running away from the lasso was 
explained by the chief, who said that when once 
a horse had been caught by a lasso, since the opera- 
tion usually threw the animal violently to the 
ground, he never forgot it, and did not care to re- 
peat the experience. 

A few hours later they came upon a herd of buf- 
faloes and all took up the chase. Only one was 
brought to earth, however, and that was by Davy's 
rifle. This brought him more praise from the 
Indians, as he had now proved himself not only a 
brave man but a good shot. That night they built 
several big fires, cut up the meat into steaks and 
chops, and sitting about the fires, they roasted it 
and feasted upon it till the embers died down ; then 
wrapped in their blankets, they slept the sleep of 
peace. The next morning they reached the 
Colorado River. They had to go down its course 
a few miles to strike the trail to San Antonio. 
While proceeding along the banks of the stream, 
the quick eye of the Indian chief discovered 
smoke rising in the distance. Quickly, as before, 
the party divided into two lines and, galloping 
forward, encircled the fire before they were dis- 
covered. Crockett and the chief advanced to- 
gether to find a sohtary man,— none other than 
Thimblerig! Crockett was overjoyed at the dis- 



172 DAVY CROCKETT 

covery and quickly introduced him to the chief as 
his friend. 

Here the Indians left Crockett, but not before 
he had given their leader a fine bowie knife. The 
chief summoned his followers about him and at 
a signal the redskins broke into a pandemonium of 
whoops, accompanied by the fearful squawking of 
all the women. The incident gives an example of 
the true friendship and hospitality of which the 
native American Indian, when treated Hke a human 
being, was capable. Crockett says of this chief 
that *'he was the politest person he ever met ex- 
cepting one man he met in New York." 

To add to Crockett's satisfaction, the bee-hunter 
had joined Thimblerig during his absence. The 
hunter had returned laden with honey, and just 
then he was out hunting something for their supper. 
Great was the bee-hunter's joy, on returning with 
a fat turkey, to find Crockett. While the three 
were partaking of a savory supper, two horsemen 
were seen approaching. They were in a hostile 
country, so they made ready their rifles to give 
them a hot reception ; but in a moment it was 
discovered that the newcomers were the pirate 
and the young Indian. The five men were glad to 
join forces, for at any time they might expect to 
meet with armed Mexicans. The next morning 



CROCKETT'S LAST HUNT 173 

they set out for San Antonio. Nothing of interest 
happened until, when about twenty miles from the 
end of their journey, they saw approaching a band 
of some twenty ''greasers" on horseback. At 
once the five dismounted and stood behind their 
horses, awaiting the attack. 

When within a few hundred yards of them, the 
leader of the Mexicans demanded in Spanish that 
they surrender. We will let Colonel Crockett 
tell what then happened : — 

"' There will be a brush with those blackguards,' said the 
pirate. 'Now each of you single out your man for the first 
fire, and they are greater fools than I take them for if they 
give us a chance for a second shot. Colonel, just settle the 
business with that talking fellow with the red feather, he's 
worth any three of the party.' 

*'' Surrender, or we fire,' shouted the fellow with the red 
feather. The pirate shouted, . . . 'Fire away.' And sure 
enough they took his advice, for the next minute we were 
saluted with a discharge of musketry, the report of which 
was so loud that we were convinced they all had fired. Be- 
fore the smoke had cleared away we had each selected our 
man and fired ; and I never did see such a scattering among 
their ranks as followed. We beheld several mustangs run- 
ning wild without their riders over the prairie, and the 
balance of the company were already retreating at a more 
rapid gait than they approached. We hastily mounted 
and commenced pursuit which we kept up until we beheld 
the independent flag flying from the battlement of the for- 



174 DAVY CROCKETT 

tress of Alamo, our place of destination. The fugitives suc- 
ceeded in evading our pursuit, and we rode up to the gates 
of the fortress, announced to the sentinel who we were, 
and the gates were thrown open. We entered amid shouts 
of welcome bestowed upon us by the patriots." 



CHAPTER XVI 

"Remember the Alamo" 

The story of the Alamo, which we have now 
reached, is hard to tell if the story-writer desires 
to be truthful, because no one who saw all that 
happened on those glorious but awful days in Feb- 
ruary and March of 1836 survived to tell the tale. 

The Alamo was a strong fortress on the river in the 
outskirts of the town of San Antonio. It contained 
a garrison of about one hundred and fifty soldiers. 
The town itself was inhabited by about twelve 
hundred Mexicans and a few Americans. It had 
been taken from the Mexicans by the Americans on 
December 10, 1835, when, in a battle lasting five 
days and five nights. General Burleson, with two 
hundred and sixteen Texans, overpowered seven- 
teen hundred Mexicans in the town, and drove the 
Mexican general into the Alamo, just outside the 
town, where he hoisted the white flag. The Texans 
with great satisfaction accepted the surrender, 
for they were out of powder, and hoisted on the 
ramparts the flag of Independent Texas. 

17s 



176 DAVY CROCKETT 

It was only a few weeks after the taking of the 
Alamo that Colonel Crockett and his four compan- 
ions passed through its gates and were welcomed 
by the garrison. The fame of Crockett had 
preceded him, and every one felt that the famous 
scout alone was worth a dozen men, and men were 
sadly needed; for, as their scouts had reported, 
Santa Anna, the president of the Mexican Republic, 
was near at hand, at the head of an army of sixteen 
hundred Mexicans. It was composed of infantry, 
cavalry, and artillery, and accompanied by some 
of his best generals. 

The commander of the fortress was Colonel 
William B. Travis, a gallant and impetuous officer, 
who like Crockett never stopped to count the 
numbers of his enemies but always ^'went ahead." 
Another of the immortal band of Alamo defenders 
was Colonel James Bowie, one of two Louisiana 
brothers who were among the ablest and bravest 
fighters for independence this country has known. 
It was after these brothers that the "bowie knife" 
was named. Davy says that he was introduced 
to Colonel Bowie by Colonel Travis, and was con- 
versing with him when Bowie had occasion to draw 
his famous knife to cut a strap, and that "the very 
sight of it was enough to give a man of squeamish 
stomach the colic, especially before breakfast." 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 177 

The remainder of the garrison was made up of 
as desperate and daring spirits as ever drew a 
weapon. There was not a coward among them. 
But one spirit appeared to animate them, and that 
was — liberty or death ! 

Before the battle, in which they had every reason 
to expect death, they were each given the choice of 
going or staying, but not a man marched out of 
the Alamo. 

On February 20, a hunter brought in word that 
some Indians had told him that Santa Anna was 
within a few days' march. Others came in saying 
that the Mexicans were endeavoring to incite the 
Indians to join them, but without effect. These 
reports set the garrison to work ''as Uvely as Dutch 
cheese in dog days," as Crockett says. 

Three days later — February 23 — the Mexicans 
came in sight, marching in regular order, their 
blood-red banner flying to denote no quarter to 
the enemy, their swords and muskets gleaming, 
their band playing. All this to impress the enemy. 
But it was of no avail ; the Americans were made 
of stuff too stern to be frightened by noise and 
glitter. 

Seeing the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, 
Colonel Travis withdrew his men from the town 
and entered the fortress which they made ready to 



1 78 DAVY CROCKETT 

defend to the last. Already ammunition, arms, 
and provisions had been stored within its walls. 

As soon as the gates were shut, the garrison 
hoisted its flag, — thirteen stripes, red and white al- 
ternately, on a blue ground, with a large white 
star of five points in the center, and between the 
points the letters of the word T-E-X-A-S. At 
the raising of the flag the bee-hunter, as Crockett 
says, burst forth in a song that made the blood 
tingle. 

" Up with your banner, Freedom, 

Thy champions cling to thee ; 

They'll follow where'er you lead 'em 

To death, or victory — 

Up with your banner, Freedom. 

"Tyrants and slaves are rushing 
To tread thee in the dust ; 
Their blood will soon be gushing, 
And stain our knives with rust ; 
But not thy banner. Freedom. 

"While stars and stripes are flying, 
Our blood we'll freely shed ; 
No groan will 'scape the dying. 
Seeing thee o'er his head ; — 
Up with your banner. Freedom." 

Then followed three lusty cheers amid the beat- 
ing of drums and the stirring notes of the trumpets. 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 179 

That same afternoon Santa Anna sent a messen- 
ger from the town demanding unconditional sur- 
render, and threatening death by the sword to every 
man in case of refusal. The answer to the demand 
was a cannon shot. 

Colonel Travis now asked for a volunteer to go to 
Goliad, four days' journey distant, to ask for reen- 
forcements from Colonel Fannin. The old pirate 
offered himself and was accepted, and at nightfall 
he set out. 

The following day, February 24, the Mexicans 
began the erection of a battery on the bank of the 
river, and by the afternoon were getting the range 
with their cannon at a distance of three hundred 
and fifty yards. That evening thirty reenforce- 
ments arrived from Gonzales, as Crockett says, 
''just in time to reap a harvest of glory ; but there 
is some prospect of sweating blood before we gather 
it in." 

That afternoon an accident happened to Thim- 
blerig. While sitting in an exposed position, 
amusing himself with the old trick with which he 
was wont to get money from innocent victims, a 
three-ounce ball glanced from the parapet, and 
striking him on the breast, made a painful though 
not a dangerous wound. Davy extracted the ball 
and advised the fellow to wear it for a watch charm. 



i8o DAVY CROCKETT 

''No, Colonel," he replied, "lead is too scarce and 
I'll lend it out at compound interest." 

At early dawn on the morning of February 25 
the enemy began firing, but they were poor marks- 
men and did no damage, while more than one of 
their number were toppled over by the keen sharp- 
shooters within the fortress. Some of the shots 
from the Mexican guns coming uncomfortably 
close to Colonel Crockett's bed, he got up and 
went out to find Thimblerig peppering the enemy 
all by himself, "paying his debts," he said, "inter- 
est and all." He had melted the grapeshot into 
four balls, and with each one of these he had 
brought down a "greaser." By this time the 
enemy had so disposed themselves that they had 
the fortress entirely surrounded. All hope of 
reenforcements was gone. It was now left for the 
members of the devoted band of Americans to 
resist to the utmost and sell their lives at the high- 
est price. 

At this time Colonel Bowie was taken ill. This 
loss to the fighting strength of the garrison was 
equal to the loss of a dozen men. The bee-hunter, 
we are told, was the owner of a fine rifle, and he was 
almost as good a shot as Crockett himself. Colo- 
nel Bowie, who knew him of old, said that Crock- 
ett could not have a braver companion, and that 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" i8i 

with fifteen hundred such men he would under- 
take to march to Mexico City and capture the 
stronghold of Santa Anna. Davy says that the 
bee-hunter brought down eleven of the enemy at 
such a distance that the others thought it a waste 
of ammunition to try. 

On this day the bee-hunter headed a small party 
that sallied forth in search of wood and water. 
They were attacked by three times their number, 
but got back in safety. The bee-hunter, it will be 
recalled, carried a Bible that had been given him 
by his sweetheart, Katy, whose home was in Nac- 
ogdoches. He read a portion of it every night 
before going to bed. That night, on opening the 
book, he found a bullet embedded in it. 

*'See here. Colonel," he said to Crockett, ^'how 
they have treated the valued present of my dear 
little Kate of Nacogdoches." ''It has saved your 
life," said the Colonel. "True," he replied, more 
serious than usual, "and I am not the first sinner 
whose Hfe has been saved by this book." Crock- 
ett says he heard the man thank God in prayer 
that night for his escape from death, and he did 
not fail to mention "his Kate." 

Soon provisions began to run short in the for- 
tress, and the Mexicans were making every effort 
to cut off the water supply. They Were also scour- 



i82 DAVY CROCKETT 

ing the surrounding country, burning houses, steal- 
ing crops, and murdering men, women, and children. 
Santa Anna had threatened to convert the country 
into a howling wilderness and was making good his 
threat. There was no outrage brutal enough to 
satisfy this treacherous and cruel soldier. Crock- 
ett longed for just one crack at the rascal, saying 
that if he could get it, even at a hundred yards, 
he would agree to break his beloved Betsey and 
never pull trigger again. The Mexicans, now be- 
coming more venturesome, were bringing their can- 
non nearer and nearer to the fortress. 

On the morning of February 29, Crockett awoke 
to find that a gun was getting a more than usually 
good aim at the part of the building where he slept. 
Quickly dressing, he grabbed his rifle and ran to a 
point of vantage, there to discover that during the 
night the enemy had planted a gun within rifle- 
shot of the fort. At that very moment the gunner 
was lighting a match to discharge it. Crockett 
took quick aim and the gunner dropped. Another 
ran forward and took the match from the victim's 
hand, and just as he was about to apply it, Davy, 
with another rifle handed him by a comrade, 
plucked him ; a third suffered the same fate, and 
a fourth and a fifth. And then the gun was 
abandoned. 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 183 

By March i the Mexicans had lost three hundred 
men, but their numbers were rapidly increasing, 
since almost daily reenforcements came to them 
from across the border. 

The Americans were fully conscious of their 
desperate condition. They were outnumbered 
nearly twenty to one. Colonel Bowie was still too 
ill to fight. Provisions were almost gone, and no 
hope remained of their being rescued by their 
countrymen. 

On March 2 the patriots of Texas (but not the 
doomed heroes of the Alamo) met in the town of 
New Washington and framed the Texas Decla- 
ration of Independence. Crockett writes in his 
diary on that day : — 

"We have given over all hopes of receiving assistance 
from Goliad or Refugio. Colonel Travis harangued the 
garrison, and concluded by exhorting them, in case the 
enemy should carry the fort, to fight to the last gasp, and 
render their victory even more serious to them than to us. 
This was followed by three cheers." 

We shall give the story of March 4 and 5 in 
Davy's own words as they appear in his diary, 
since they are the last recorded words of our 
sturdy patriot : — 

"March 4 : Shells have been falling into the fort like hail 
during the day, but without effect. About dusk, in the eve- 



1 84 DAVY CROCKETT 

ning, we observed a man running toward the fort, pursued by 
about half a dozen of the Mexican cavalry. The bee- 
hunter immediately knew him to be the old pirate who had 
gone to Goliad, and, calling to the two hunters, he sallied out 
of the fort to the relief of the old man, who was hard pressed. 
I followed close after. Before we reached the spot the 
Mexicans were close on the heel of the old man, who stopped 
suddenly, turned short upon his pursuers, discharged his 
rifle, and one of the enemy fell from his horse. The chase 
was renewed, but finding that he would be overtaken and 
cut to pieces, he now turned again, and, to the amazement of 
the enemy, became the assailant in his turn. He clubbed 
his gun, and dashed among them like a wounded tiger, and 
they fled like sparrows. By this time we reached the spot, 
and, in the ardor of the moment, followed some distance 
before we saw that our retreat to the fort was cut off by 
another detachment of cavalry. Nothing was to be done 
but to fight our way through. We were all of the same mind. 
* Go ahead ! ' cried I, and they shouted, ' Go ahead. Colonel ! ' 
We dashed among them, and a bloody conflict ensued. 
They were about twenty in number, and they stood their 
ground. After the fight had continued about five minutes, 
a detachment was seen issuing from the fort to our relief, 
and the Mexicans scampered off, leaving eight of their 
comrades dead upon the field. But we did not escape un- 
scathed, for both the pirate and the bee-hunter were mortally 
wounded, and I received a saber cut across the forehead. 
The old man died, without speaking, as soon as we entered 
the fort. We bore my young friend to his bed, dressed his 
wounds, and I watched beside him. He lay, without com- 
plaint or manifesting pain, until about midnight, when he 
spoke, and I asked him if he wanted anything. 'Nothing/ 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 185 

he replied, but drew a sigh that seemed to rend his heart, 
as he added, ' Poor Kate of Nacogdoches ! ' His eyes were 
filled with tears as he continued, * Her words were prophetic, 
Colonel ' ; and then he sang in a low voice that resembled 
the sweet notes of his own devoted Kate, 

' But toom cam' the saddle, all bluidy to see, 

And hame cam' the steed, but hame never cam' he.* 

He spoke no more, and a few minutes after, died. Poor 
Kate, who will tell this to thee? 

" March 5. Pop, pop, pop ! Bom, bom, bom ! through- 
out the day. No time for memorandums now. Go ahead ! 
Liberty and independence forever ! " 

On March 5 Colonel Travis again asked if there 
were any who wished to go while yet there was a 
chance for escape, but not a man showed the 
white feather. During the afternoon of that day 
a Comanche arrow dropped into the fort, having 
been shot by some friend on the outside, and to it 
was attached a copy of the official order issued to 
the Mexican troops for the attack of the morrow. 

On Sunday morning, March 6, the end came. 
At four in the morning the Mexican bugles were 
heard and the little garrison at once flew to their 
stations, for they knew it to be the signal for the 
general attack. With the first streak of dawn the 
enemy, four thousand in number, came pouring 
forward, led in person by Santa Anna, their band 



i86 DAVY CROCKETT 

playing the Dequello, which meant no quarter. 
The savage Mexican leader had placed his infantry 
in columns and surrounded them with his cavalry, 
who with drawn sabers were ordered to drive the 
fighters on, and prevent any attempt at retreat. 

By six o'clock the division of the Mexicans 
under General Castrillon gained an entrance to one 
part of the fortress. At the same time the larger 
part of the attacking force were twice repulsed on 
the north front; on a third attack they reached 
the walls, against which they placed their scaling 
ladders. The first to scale the ladders were hurled 
to the earth by the murderous fire of the Texans 
who, barricaded behind bags of dirt along the para- 
pet and in the doors and windows, fought like 
demons. Officers of the attacking force, with 
drawn swords, stood at the bottom of the ladders, 
compelling others to take the places of those who 
fell. So fast did the Mexicans finally swarm over 
the parapets that the brave defenders had no time 
to reload their guns, of which every fighter had 
several. In this dilemma, they grasped their guns 
by the barrel and laid about them right and left, 
felling a "greaser" at every blow. 

Perhaps few combats in history equal in fury 
the fight in the Alamo. There was the crack 
of musketry, the boom of heavy ordnance, the 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 187 

shrieks of the wounded and dying, the savage 
commands of the officers, the yells of defiance, and 
with it all the fierce music of the Mexican band as 
it rang out the cruel Dequello. 

The survivors now took refuge in the main 
building and the long, two-story barracks that was 
being used as a hospital. Every room became the 
scene of desperate hand-to-hand encounters, the 
Mexicans with swords and bayonets, the Texans 
with the butts of their guns and their long knives. 
One by one the forlorn remnant, backed against 
the walls by the pressure of superior numbers, fell 
fighting to the earth. As the Mexicans rushed 
into the room occupied by the sick and wounded, 
they were met by a volley of pistol shots from the 
poor fellows who Hfted themselves on their cots to 
fire their weapons. Every shot laid one of the 
enemy low. Then others, pushing in over the 
dead bodies of their comrades, fell upon the doomed 
men, who had staggered to their feet, and cut them 
down without mercy. In some such way died the 
heroic Bowie. 

Colonel Travis fell from the parapet where he 
was directing the firing of a cannon, pierced by a 
Mexican bullet. 

And how fared Davy Crockett? We wish it 
might be known just how the hero of this story 



i88 DAVY CROCKETT 

died, but no one survived to relate the facts ex- 
actly as they occurred. A woman, a certain Mrs. 
Dickinson, who was in the fort at the time, and 
whose life was spared, says the last she saw of 
Colonel Crockett was his mutilated body lying 
near the main walls of the Alamo. 

Others tell the story thus : When the defenders 
were reduced to six, Crockett among the number, 
they were asked to surrender and a promise to 
spare their lives was given. Further resistance 
being useless, they gave themselves up and were 
taken before Santa Anna in the courtyard. Crock- 
ett marched into the presence of the Mexican 
chief with a steady step and a stern face. General 
Castrillon addressed his chief: ''Sir, here are six 
prisoners I have taken aHve. How shall I dispose 
of them?" Santa Anna, casting a fierce glance at 
his general (or turning his back without a word, as 
another writer says), replied, ''Have I not told you 
before how to dispose of them ? Why do you bring 
them to me?" At this the officers standing about 
drew their swords. Crockett, enraged at this act 
of treachery, sprang like a tiger at the Mexican 
chief, but was stopped by a dozen sword points that 
found his heart. And in like manner at the same 
moment died his five companions. 

Still other historians declare that this account is 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 189 

fanciful, and that Crockett died as did the others, 
in his tracks, his back to a wall and his face to the 
foe, grasping the stock of his beloved Betsey, 
giving and asking no quarter. This is most in 
line with Davy Crockett's nature, and is probably 
nearer the truth. 

During the siege and the assault the Mexicans 
lost more than fifteen hundred men. Every Amer- 
ican in the fortress, save two women and two ser- 
vants, or one hundred and eighty-seven of the 
bravest men God ever made, fell for the lone-star 
flag of Texas. Their bodies were heaped in the 
courtyard and burned. The tricolor of Mexico was 
flung to the breeze. But that same breeze, waft- 
ing to every American fireside the cruel, bloody 
story, brought back the avenging cry, ^'Remember 
the Alamo," and sounded the death-knell of Mexi- 
can rule above the Rio Grande. 

Thus lived, and thus died, this child of poverty, 
the unschooled, sturdy hunter, the sure shot, 
valiant scout, jovial companion, loyal friend, un- 
compromising enemy, pure patriot and martyr to 
freedom — Davy Crockett. 



Printed in the United States of America. 



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